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Nokia Names Microsoft's Elop As New CEO
itwbennett writes "Nokia has tapped Stephen Elop, former president of Microsoft's business software group, to become its new CEO effective Sept. 21. Elop will replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who loses his board seat immediately and will step down from the CEO position on Sept. 20. Microsoft said Elop will leave immediately, but the company doesn't seem to be rushing to fill the vacancy at the top of one of its largest divisions. 'I am writing to let you know that Stephen Elop has been offered and has accepted the job as CEO of Nokia and will be leaving Microsoft, effective immediately,' Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote in a letter to employees late Thursday."
Not really. This guy is taking the role of CEO, not chief engineer. Elop probably has a proven track record in managing Microsoft's business-software division (which does better than most divisions at MS) so they want him to deliver the same success to Nokia.
Also, it's worth noting that Nokia's financial success is not dependent on competing with Apple in the smartphone market. They could simply continue making featurephones and dominate that segment, and make tons of money doing so.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Maybe Nokia's hoping to move in more of a business direction and eat up Blackberry's market?
Elop comes from Office, which is about as close to a license to print money as you can get in the Office world. Clearly he knows something about managing a product that the business world will want. Cue a handful of people who are convinced that any day now Google Docs or OO will finally make real headway against Office in much the same way that Cubs fans are convinced that this will be their year in the World Series, but seriously -- even if Office somehow went down in flames today, it's still enjoyed utter dominance of its market for, what, 15 years? I'm sure if Nokia ended up with only that kind of dominance over business smartphones out of this move (and I don't think they will, but for the sake of argument... ) they'd be happy with it.
On the other hand MS Office as software is very bloated and inelegant.
On the other other hand, Office enjoys ridiculous market share and makes a staggering amount of money.
I wonder which of those things would be more important to a corporation.
This guy isn't Mr Microsoft. He simply worked for them. Have some damn perspective.