Hacker News Reader

Comment by hbharadwaj | Hacker News Reader

As an ex-management consultant, I don't see any other plays that were possible for Elop. I am going off of the Bloomberg article for some conclusions. He is vilified simply because he became the last CEO of a beloved empire which was already gasping for it's last breaths. His plays were the right plays from a Business Perspective. But at that point, it was already too late and Apple/Google had already conquered the market. The only viable option would have been to re-invent the cell phone.

1. Nokia had a Maps business. Obviously, Elop wanted to see it on the chosen platform. 2. Nokia had a host of apps that they wanted to see on the chosen platform. 3. Google refused to allow modifications to their MADA. 4. Meego/Maemo were not viable/not ready. 5. Microsoft's offer came with an infusion of cash.

(Bloomberg article: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567...)

View on HN

> He is vilified simply because he became the last CEO of a beloved empire which was already gasping for it's last breaths

That's being overly generous to Elop. The 'Burning Platform' memo was by his own volition and it played a big part in the decline. This essay nails what Elop did wrong[1] (a bit over-the-top though). Namely, he called his own product crap, and when he distributed the memo, Nokia had no solution ready - they were waiting on Microsoft (Osborne effect). "Hey guys, our phones are currently crap. That Maemo phone you're about to buy - we're discontinuing it. We will have awesome ones sometime in the future though. Remember to by a Nokia ;-)".

1. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/08/coining...

The burning platform memo was leaked. It wasn't as if it was sent out as a press release.

It's completely ridiculous to send a memo to any significant fraction of the employees of a 60+k person company and not make plans for it being the top story in tomorrow's news.

If it was impossible for him to communicate with the people who worked fine him about the need for changed strategy without dooming the company, they were already doomed.

> The 'Burning Platform' memo was by his own volition and it played a big part in the decline.

He wrote the memo but the question is to what extent it simply described the situation as it actually existed. If he had never written that memo, would Nokia be a competitive mobile platform ecosystem today? I find that hard to believe. I don't think it's realistic to blame so much on a few hundred words.

By describing 'the situation as it actually existed', he did a massive disservice to the company he helmed. I am not saying it was the reason Nokia failed, only that it was a huge contributing factor.

You do not expect a company CEO to do negative PR - he damaged Nokia's brand and greatly harmed the confidence developers/consumers had in Nokia.

> I don't think it's realistic to blame so much on a few hundred words.

From the article I previously linked: "Gerald Ratner[1] was CEO of British jewelry group Ratners (since renamed Signet Group). He made a famous speech in London to the Institute of Directors in 1991 in which he said his company products were sold for such low prices "because its total crap." This remark was then published and caused his company to collapse and was only saved by his departure - and the rebranding of the company to Signet."

Ratner destroyed his company in 43 words (relevant part of speech is on Wikipedia).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner

Samsung rose to power as the biggest (and most profitable) Android manufacturer during the same time Nokia made its big (company breaking) bet on Windows Phone. If Nokia had gone with Android perhaps they could have been the dominant Android hardware...

And maybe they could have been like the OTHER Android OEMs. I know which I think is more likely. And even being Samsung isn't all that hot:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-takes-89-percent-of-all-s...

Apple is, I think like 20% of the smartphone market worldwide? But about 90% of the profits. And Samsung has to make almost all of its profits at sale, with Google making all the ongoing profits from stuff like Maps and app stores; if Microsoft cut Nokia in on any of that money (Nokia shipped mapping and music apps for their Windows Phone, for example), it may have looked like a better deal than Android offers Samsung currently.

Compare the sale price of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo (after Google stripped it of its patent portfolio) to how much money Nokia's handset business sold to Microsoft for without patents attached. What Elop did with Nokia's phone business may have been the best case scenario for it.

Sorry, but there's not much to support the idea that Nokia could have magically made it if only they had picked Android.

The first Samsung Galaxy was shipped in 2009[0] -- over a year before Elop was made CEO of Nokia [1] and nearly two years before the "Windows Phone Strategy" was announced.

In 2011 -- years before any strategy shift to either Windows or Android would have been able to be implemented, Samsung was already shipping more smartphones than anyone else -- including Apple [2]. Nokia didn't ship their first Windows Phone device until November 2011.

It would have been a Blackberry Storm kind of stupid to try taking on Samsung with Android as the platform. There's no compelling reason to pick Nokia over Samsung when the target market is just looking for value. At least with Windows Phone, there was some differentiation they could hope to appeal to consumers with.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop

[2] https://gigaom.com/2012/02/07/npd-apple-sold-most-smartphone...

While I agree with most of what you say, Nokia did have a differentiator: awesome, reliable, rugged, (occasionally) stylish hardware -- not a strength for most Android manufacturers, I think you'll agree. But Nokia's software is generally terrible.

Nokia hardware & Android software could have been a pretty killer combo, and a sufficient differentiator to get some extra profit margin; plus Nokia was (is) very experienced in producing at huge volume.

Unsurprisingly, the rump of Nokia that was not merged into Microsoft is now climbing on the Android bandwagon in a big way... but unfortunately everybody else now has a 10-year headstart.

I agree, and everyone loves to hate the bad guy but what I find interesting is that my wife loves her Lumia phone running Windows, she really really wants a Lumia 640 and they are just barely becoming available in the US after a lot of really great reviews in Europe. There is a small but vocal group of people who could be excellent advocates here and logistics issues? or something are plaguing the roll out. That is a bigger systemic problem. Hopefully aligning both windows and hardware will highlight situations where you have a hardware 'winner' that is under funded.

I think what most of us hate him for is going the MS route rather than making Android phones. Nokia used to make great phones, but with sub-par OS. Why not combine the best of both worlds?

At the time, I don't think normal users would have called Android better than 'sub-par'. I'll admit that with Material Design and recent OS releases, they've gotten much better, but still many of my non-geek friends tolerate their Android phone that they got for "the big screen".

Now that Apple has solved the "I want a big screen" problem, I think those people will run back to iOS.

I'm sure Elop thought MS was going to put some more effort behind WP. They got a lot of things right, but not the UI and certainly not the marketing.

For what it's worth, I've been using WP for about 3 years now. It's performance is underrated, but Metro went too far as a flat UI.

Making phones right now is really a game of supply chain mastery and scale. Nokia didn't have an particular advantage in either area, especially when it came to smart phones. If they started making android phones, it's more likely they'd be another HTC or LG than another Samsung or Apple.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com