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Stephen Elop New Chief Innovator For Australia's Telstra
Freshly Exhumed writes: The former Microsoft executive excoriated by some industry watchers for the collapse of Nokia Mobile Phones, Stephen Elop, has re-emerged down under. Telstra says Elop is being appointed to the new role of Group Executive Technology, Innovation and Strategy, "leading Telstra's strategy to become a world class technology company" (stop giggling, you in the back row). Telstra cites Elop's "deep technology experience" and "innate sense of customer expectations."
Eflop The Destroyer spells DOOM!
" Microsoft buys Telstra at a steal..."
RIP Telstra
I hope they can improve their customer service because at the moment it is so bad, and their procedures so illogical, that it is faster to churn across to another service provider than it is to get Telstra to fix things, so if you are out of contract just jump and don't even bother asking them for help.
Since when did they want them gone?
Telstra cites Elop's "deep technology experience" and "innate sense of customer expectations."
That must be a weird typo, it should read "inane sense of customer expectations." instead.
I have good news and bad news. The good news is we got rid of our Elop problem! The bad news is that we had to sacrifice Australia to do it.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Too big to fail applies to individual careers too it would seem. I doubt he'll run his sector of the business any worse than his predecessors, he would have to try awfully hard in order to achieve that. Telstra is famously incompetent here in Aus, and they're our largest telco - go figure.
He did exactly what he was supposed to do - ruin Nokia as an independent company so that Microsoft could swoop in.
#DeleteChrome
Seems like odd choices, all round, frankly.
For Stephen, he's gone from CEO of Nokia (massive global brand) to head of a large division at Microsoft (massive Global brand) to kind of "some guy" at Telstra. A company everyone in Australia has heard of, sure - but probably no one else.
For Tesltra, it's like picking a guy who keeps failing (and you can certainly argue for issue outside of his control - but you could argue against that, too). I get there's more to it than this but I have to say, this seems a bit weird, all around.
Among other things, Australia's technological achievements include WiFi, which you quite likely used to write your message.
Jumping from one executive position into the other, no matter what the quality of their work.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
This is interesting as they have also bought a UK health intelligence company (which wasn't really) called Dr Foster, and also imported the ex-head of the NHS IT and informatics - Tim Kelsey who is an ex-journalist rather than a techie.
I can see why they want to build up non-primary industry services that can be exported.
However
I speak as an Australian when I say that Australia is not very smart about who to hire externally and they tend to go for names rather than capabilities, although these people may be hired for their ability to sell. Unfortunately Telstra is like the Australian car and supermarket industries - an effective monopoly with poor products and (historically) poor engineering and so what they should be doing is pulling in top-end engineering talent.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
Telstra are already one of the crappiest telcos in Australia (and a company I have as little as possible to do with), I cant see how Elop could make things any worse.
Australia has a long history of innovation and inventions. Some of the ones you may have heard of include:
The black box flight recorder
Spray-on skin for burn victims
The heart pacemaker
Plastic bank notes
The bionic ear
The electric drill
WiFi
The medical ultrasound machine
The cervical cancer vaccine
The boomerang
The hills hoist
The stubby holder
Ugg Boots
The Esky
The Ute
The Victa lawn mower
The wine cask
And that's just some of the things Aussies have invented over the years.
I know Telstra is about the most expensive internet in the country but I never realised how bad the entry country was until I moved away.
Well I'm sure he'll be no worse than having a nuclear physicist running the place.
In the first article the blogger defined Elop Effect as "COMMUNICATION errors" - ditching Symbian before Windows phone was ready. HELL, NO, it's not merely a COMMUNICATION errors". He's a former employee of Microsoft, and he has his track-record of destroying Macromedia (plummeted its stock values, and then sold it to Adobe) when he was also the CEO of this company. His mission was very well-known in telecommunication world: molesting Nokia from inside so that it could agreed to sleep with Microsoft as a cheap whore.
If anybody asked me what Elop Effect is: hostile take-over of a company by sending them an infiltrator CEO.
First Nokia, Espoo, Finland
Then Microsoft, Redmond, USA
Now Telstra, Melbourne, Australia
His final destination is for sure Amudsen-Scott base, Antarctica
Trying to pin down THE "inventor" of almost all of those devices is futile. A case in point is who "invented" the airplane - your first hurdle is simply defining "airplane" - and, does it have to be powered? - and piloted? A Greek by the name of Archytas was reputed to have flown a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of steam for some 200 metres, around 400 BC. Manned gliders were experimented with as early as the 9th century AD. Sir George Cayley was flying glider models that were essentially the full embodiment of the modern conception of airplanes (sans power plants) - in 1803 or 1804. He built a manned glider that flew successfully in 1853. Cayley may have performed powered flight in 1901, though definitive documentation is lacking.
Eyewitness accounts say the New Zealander Richard Pearse took off in his engine-powered monoplane in 1902 or 1903 and flew 300 metres - something (take off under their own power) which the Wrights did NOT accomplish in their first flight at the very end of 1903.
Contemporary reports exist that Gustave Whitehead flew over 2 km in 1901. His craft was not just an airplane, but a flying car. It had two engines driving two propellers, plus a third engine for terrestrial driving. On March 8, 2013, "Jane's All the World's Aircraft" formally recognized this achievement, after years of discrediting.
I did look up the Australian "pacemaker". It was a 1926 machine that had to be plugged into a wall socket. It had one skin pad plus one needle which had to be plunged through the chest wall into the heart. But it did work, and was capable of resuscitating patients from cardiac arrest, after which its use could be terminated. A Canadian produced a fully transcutaneous pacemaker in 1950. It was heavy, plugged into a wall socket, and rather uncomfortable, because of the heavy shocking action, like today's external defibrillators. In 1958 a USAian, Bakken, produced the first wearable external pacemaker, using transcutaneous leads embedded in the heart. Proper implantable pacemakers followed.
I am satisfied to consider that brilliant people of many nations and cultures have all participated in developing and perfecting many useful things.
Watch as they get hollowed out and carved up, ripe for a buyout.
and Trumpet Winsock by Peter Tattam from Tasmania, Australia
I can smell another burning platform...
It only makes sense if you consider CEOs to be modern royalty, and that companies need to choose someone of a "noble bloodline" to rule them. I can't find any other logical explanation for putting someone as astronomically incompetent as Stephen Elop in charge of anything more than a mop & bucket (not even a gas pump or coffee machine, gas is flammable and coffee burns).
I'd say that this guy is the Hitler of business management, but I don't think that carries the weight it once did, we're too cool with Hitlers these days. Should we go back to the Pharaoh standard?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I think of Australia as the country with the worlds most deadly animals. This seems to fit with that.
Why do you dislike Greenland?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I suppose they have to get creative when 95% of the animals/arachnids/insects are at least 10x the size of the same creature elsewhere in the world... and they're poisonous enough to kill people.
;-)
I don't know how plastic bank notes helps people survive... nor would I go around bragging "we made uggs!"
Don't forget the insanely awesome (at the time) Fairlight CMI.
he had his best shot at taking Telestra down by the lawyers. Telestra seems to be the dumping ground for losers in suits.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Carly Fiorina never got an important job again after ruining HP.
WTF does this turd get something?
Andrew was forced to do it, because nobody else in the world had the same problem. Australia is just that bad.
Here is an old talk from him:
"So the core of rsync is this algorithm that I call the rsync algorithm. And it solves this problem, the remote update problem. Now the remote update problem is basically: you have two computers connected by a very high latency, very low bandwidth link... a typical Internet link, at least if you're in Australia. So, a piece of wet string, a really pathetic link... and you've got two files."
http://olstrans.sourceforge.ne...
If you prefer to hear him talk about rsync instead of reading, there are recordings of that talk as well. I'm sure you can search for it.
New things are always on the horizon
Also called box wine.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?