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Stephen Elop Would Pull a Nokia On Microsoft
Nerval's Lobster writes "A new Bloomberg report suggests that Stephen Elop, who's apparently on the short list of candidates to replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft's CEO, would eliminate company projects such as Xbox and Bing while focusing resources on Office. Before he left Microsoft to join Nokia, Elop headed Microsoft's Business Division, so it's no surprise he'd want to focus on Office and the company's other, highly profitable enterprise software. But as head of Nokia, Elop made similarly bold strategic realignments that, while they probably looked good on paper, didn't quite work out. Specifically, Elop decided to abandon Nokia's popular homegrown operating systems, including Symbian, in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone. That caused Nokia's share of the overall mobile-device market to dive into the single digits. At the time, Elop insisted he made the decision because Symbian and its ilk were incapable of competing in the broader market against Android and iOS; revelations by the Finnish media over the past few months, however, suggest that he'd been offered a generous cash incentive for selling off the company, which gives his 'strategic realignment' (which everyone knew would initially collapse Nokia's market-share, as its product pipeline emptied out) a whiff of self-interest. So while it's likely that a Microsoft run by Elop would make some decisive moves, his previous attempt at game-changing quickly transformed Nokia from a communications powerhouse into a second-tier competitor and (eventually) a Microsoft subsidiary. And by eliminating Bing and Xbox, Microsoft would be giving up completely on the search and gaming markets in favor of becoming more of an enterprise-centric company—something that could please analysts mostly interested in the company's bottom line, but basically an admission of defeat in the consumer realm."
That moron completely destroyed Nokia, he will do the same to Microsoft.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Symbian wasn't a really competitive smartphone OS, but it had a lot of market share and a good transition path towards Maemo/Meego with Qt, which would have been a strong alternative.
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Especially when your 3 biggest competitors would suddenly be two companies long established in the console market (Sony and Nintendo), who both have significant revenue they can operate with, and your other competitor is the guy you just bought the division from - Microsoft, and Windows, who ultimately control most of the underlying technology you rely on.
Unless sony or Nintendo wanted to buy it no one with much sense would want to buy the Xbox division. I can't really see Sony or Nintendo wanting it other than to shut it down.