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 12th September 2010
In a dramatic move, just before next week's Nokia World
event, Nokia have announced a new CEO - Stephen Elop.
Mr Elop is the first non-Finnish CEO of Nokia. A Canadian by
nationality, his recent experience includes a stint at Microsoft
and earlier at Juniper Networks and Macromedia.
Said to be a capable change manager, Elop's role will be to transform
Nokia's fortunes, especially when it comes to the bitter fight for
market share with high-end smartphones. It's too early to say that
sort of changes might be coming up, but it likely that Elop will
want to cut through Nokia's bureaucracy to bring products to market
faster.
Ultimately, Nokia needs to rebalance engineering, customer research,
industrial design and its internal business process. Nokia certainly
has the talent to give rivals a run for their money, but at the
moment the company is suffering at the hands of Apple, RIM and Google.
Stephen Elop's Microsoft connections do perhaps open up the possibility
that Nokia might sign up to Windows Phone 7. It's not as outlandish
an idea as you might thing - Nokia and Microsoft have been working
closely together to integrate Microsoft Exchange with Nokia phones,
and for Nokia the risk/reward balance looks like it might be worth
a go.
Whatever approach Mr Elop takes, this is going to
be a tough ride. But ultimately, all consumers will benefit from
increased competition if Nokia manages to turn itself into the company
that it really should be.
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