A Timely Revision of Elop's "Burning Platform" Memo

Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft's purchase of Finnish phone-maker Nokia will enrich the latter's CEO, Stephen Elop, to the tune of roughly $25.4 million. That's a generous number, considering Nokia's much-publicized travails over the past few years — generous enough, certainly, to prod angry reactions from the Finnish media. As Elop came aboard Nokia in 2011, he wrote the infamous 'burning platform' memo, in which he suggested that radical moves would be necessary to halt the company's market-share declines. In light of these latest revelations, however, I offer an updated version of Elop's memo: ''

Comments

It shoud have suprised no one

[geekoid]

everyone know this was his goal from the beginning. You don't become CEO, and make a statement like that without the intention of selling.

Re: It shoud have suprised no one

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like what microsoft did to a number of other companies in the 90s, like SGI for instance.

Cripple your competition to get a leg up.

Seriously how anyone would be stupid enough to hire a microsoft manager for ANY critical strategic position in their company after the past two decades of activities show that most companies aren't paying attention to history and thus dooming themselves to repeat it.

Re: It shoud have suprised no one

[plover]

You missed a key fact: Elop took a good brand that now had only unwanted, aging products that could no longer compete, executed the most expensive failures, and sold the rest before the marketplace killed them completely.

Had he pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Symbian, and tried to make a go of it based on an existing loyal fan base and lots of marketing, he would have ended up EXACTLY like Blackberry -- warehouses filled with unsold phones, flat broke, and completely irrelevant in the marketplace. At least with Microsoft owning them, they're not broke.

I don't know why everyone on slashdot has remained so deluded about Nokia's potential future had Elop not taken those actions. They were not competitive, and their prospects were poor. If Symbian and Meego were as great as everyone here imagines, why weren't they crushing iPhones back in 2010?

Re:It shoud have suprised no one

[NatasRevol]

Also, ask these guys why they sold out.

http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/governance/board/board-of-directors/

Re: It shoud have suprised no one

[Anonymous Coward]

Meego wasn't even released back in 2010. It was released in 2011, AFTER everybody knew that it had no future, Nokia made all they could to stop people from knowing about it, and still the only Meego phone (the N9) sold better than the Lumia 800 (which was exactly the same phone, but with Windows Phone 7).

Re: It shoud have suprised no one

[chuckinator]

Funny that Motorola did the exact same thing except with Android instead of Windows Mobile and had resounding success.

Re:It shoud have suprised no one

[hairyfeet]

Riiiight, he and the board risked millions in fines and prison time all so they could tank the company in the HOPES that MSFT would buy them and not just wait until they collapsed and buy the best pieces...I have a bridge you may be interested in BTW.

Look its REALLY simple, okay? The board fucked up and let there end up not one, not two, but THREE different OSes, none of which could compete with iOS and Android. There best hope MeeGo/MaeMo was being actively sabotaged by both Symbian on the inside and Intel on the outside, and being the #1 dumbphone maker in this day and age of free Android phones from even the prepaid bunches was about as useful as being the biggest 8-track maker in 1987. So Elop was brought in to do the dirty work, kill the no longer update-able Symbian and to throw a Hail Mary pass and hope to gain some ground and...it failed.

so I'm sorry but they really didn't have any other option, they really didn't thanks to the board sitting on ass too long, a repeat of Palm. Ironically the best bet would have been WebOS but HP was willing to pay insane-o money for it so it was off the table, and Android is a shark tank that is in a race to the bottom. While Nokia can make dirt cheap dumbphones they have NOT shown the ability to repeat that in smartphones and there is no way in hell they would have been able to fight Samsung,HTC, and Huawei toe to toe, no way. All that was left was a Hail mary, hence the "burning platform" but there is a REASON why they call it a Hail Mary because it has but a slim prayer of working. If it would have worked I''m sure the Googleites here would be screaming how "It was all Ballmer's plan to take over Nokia!" so damned if you do, damned if you don't. Would you have rather he broke up the company and sold it like a corporate raider, like is what is likely to be the fate of BB?

How To Accomplish The "Elop Effect"

[Freshly Exhumed]

Tomi Ahonen has the formula down perfectly, with explanations:

ELOP EFFECT = RATNER EFFECT + OSBORNE EFFECT

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/09/the-do-it-yourself-elop-analysis.html

Re:How To Accomplish The "Elop Effect"

[Anonymous Howard]

Yeah, but Tomi Ahonen is a moron. This is the same guy who claimed that Symbian was clearly the best mobile smartphone OS and would crush iOS & Android if only given a chance. Riiight....

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/02/nokia-misery-in-single-pictures-today-part-8-in-series-the-elop-strategy-to-go-windows-from-feb-11-2.html

Re:How To Accomplish The "Elop Effect"

[Freshly Exhumed]

Yeah, but Tomi Ahonen is a moron.

Ah yes, good 'ol character assassination is alive and well here. Never mind the accolades Ahonen has received over the years, nor his lectures at Oxford, nor his authoritative books, nor his amazingly accurate record of predictions in the Mobile Phone industry, year after year, nor his personal network of staffers at almost every Mobile Phone company and provider in the world... nor how many times he made other supposed expert analysts look like fools (ZDnet, Howard Forums, etc. etc.)

Re:How To Accomplish The "Elop Effect"

[21mhz]

Never mind the accolades Ahonen has received over the years, nor his lectures at Oxford, nor his authoritative books, nor his amazingly accurate record of predictions in the Mobile Phone industry, year after year, nor his personal network of staffers at almost every Mobile Phone company and provider in the world... nor how many times he made other supposed expert analysts look like fools (ZDnet, Howard Forums, etc. etc.)

Never mind that, because very little of it is actually true.
For the record of his predictions, here's one.
Sorry, but Tomi is really a tedious moron who passes himself off as an expert to gullible people.

Re:Why did this make the front page?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Never ascribe to hubris and fate that which can be attributed to incompetence and greed.

This should not be a surprise

[sl4shd0rk]

I don't know why anyone is upset about this. It shouldn't be a surprise. Tech history is littered with the remains of corporate entities who once partnered with Microsoft. What part of "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" did Nokia think did not apply to them?