Elop Joins Nokia as CEO: Which Way Will He Lead It?

Image representing Stephen Elop as depicted in...
Stephen Elop

So, Nokia finally boosts Kallasvuo and hires its first non-Finnish CEO, Microsoft’s Stephen Elop, which is perhaps a turning point for both companies.

Elop led the Microsoft Business Division which reported $18.6B in sales and $11.8B in operating income. He is just the most recent of senior executives fleeing the sinking Microsoft.

And at Nokia, is he going to try to displace the faltering RIM as the purveyor of choice to business smart phones? Microsoft tried that market, and hasn’t gotten far, but obviously, there are a lot of business people out there across the world with Nokia products ringing in their pockets right now.

Elop does not seem to be the guy to go after Apple or Google for the emerging consumer smartphone market, however. Even the recent acquisition of Dopplr’s Marco Artisaari as SVP of Design does not lead to a team that can really compete on innovation with Apple and Google.

Dan Frommer sums this up a bit aggressively, stating that Elop is not the right guy for the world confronting Nokia. But then again, who would be?

Nokia Makes The Same Mistake Again: Hires A Manager, Not A Product Visionary

The standard criticism we hear about Nokia is that it’s a company overrun with managers, where decisions are always made based on business sense and never made based on product vision.

And it seems like Nokia’s board just hired another CEO who is a seasoned manager, but not a consumer product visionary. So unless Stephen Elop, Nokia’s new boss, has hidden talents, he may represent more of the same for Nokia — which would be a disaster.

Nokia needs someone who can leapfrog Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android the way they leapfrogged Nokia. Is Elop that guy?

I am not sure that this is the only path for Nokia.

There are still a lot of green fields out there for low-cost phones, as well as a serious competitor for RIM. And Apple and Google’s battlefield for the expensive smartphone market might be a bad place to be, for the next few years.

I wonder if Elop will drop Symbian and try to head out for a new take on a Nokia operating platform? Will he lead a huge reduction in Nokia management ranks? Will he create a new design team, and make sure it’s not based in Finland? Let’s see.

But I thought Elop’s comments about Finland and Canada, his native country, having the Arctic in common were odd. Did he intend that as some sort of cultural sop to Finnish pride?

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mesh program goes live…finally!

The folks organizing the mesh conference in Toronto have finalized the program, and introduced the mesh class of 2006.

I am happy to attend, and I will be speaking in a session called “Is Web 2.0 Changing the Software Industry?” led by Mike McDerment, with Chris Messina of Flock.com, Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress, and me.

In the spirit of Canadianism, I went online yesterday and investigated emigrating to Canada. No kidding. Things are crazy down here, and maybe getting worse. I have family in Canada, which helps in the Canadian government’s assessment, it seems. Here’s the resulots of the self-assessment for skilled workers (includes journalists, IT consultants, and a number of other jobs I had in the past ten years). Similar tests exist for entrepreneurs and the self-employed, both which characterize my interests.

I can’t really emigrate right now — two sons in high school — but I am bringing Keenan, my eldest, up to Toronto to look at colleges there in May, the weekend before the conference. Maybe 3 years from now, when Conrad graduates. We’ll see.

I am half-serious, despite the recent swing in Canada toward a slightly more conservative government. More research to follow, at the conference.

Join us at mesh

Mark your calendars for the upcoming (and rescheduled) mesh — Canada’s web 2.0 conference - Toronto May 15 & 16. mesh will bring together great keynotes and speakers, including Om Malik, Paul Kedrosky, Andrew Coyne, Michael Geist, Tara Hunt, Paul Wells, Steve Rubel, Jason Fried, Stowe Boyd (yes, me), Amber McArthur, Ren Bucholz, Andrew Baron, Chris Messina, David Crow (whew!) and many others. Organizers include Rob Hyndman, Matthew Ingram, Mike McDerment, Stuart MacDonald, and Mark Evans.

Looks like a great conference, and a great venue. Toronto is a fabulous city.

[Long aside: I truly love Canada: even before my sister moved there and became a ‘landed’ immigrant after living in Toronto 20-odd years, I had traveled much of the country. In the past few decades, I have been to the country literally a hundred times or so, and I am increasingly enamored of this very foreign country so close by. I also hope that if I continue to say nice things, I will be allowed to emigrate, which looks like a better and better idea considering America’s political situation and progressive global warming. Although Toronto may be one day be under water as the Great Lakes slowly turn into a giant inland ocean.