Goodbye Mark Selby (and two other NFC related Nokia Execs jumps ship)
When I read the title from IntoMobile that three top level NFC related Nokia execs were leaving, I feared one might have been Buttery voiced Nokia World MC, Mark Selby which may explain why we has missing this year.
As you saw back in April, Mark Selby has been pretty key to the NFC effort. I’ll miss Mark. He was pretty much the Morgan Freeman of mobile as far as that incredible voice was concerned, but also his efforts in Near Field Communication at Nokia.
NFC World reports the three Nokia NFC chaps are going:
Mark Selby, Nokia’s UK-based VP of industry collaborations, will leave the company at the end of December for “a new adventure”. (I hope that new adventure is not a different manufacturer. How difficult it would be to hear him accounce something for HTC/Samsung or worse, Apple
)
Damien Balsan, Nokia’s head of NFC business development for the Americas, has joined PayPal as director of ecosystem partnerships at the online payments giant’s newly formed point-of-sale unit.
Mikko Saarisalo, Nokia’s lead delegate to the NFC Forum and vice chairman of the trade association, has also left the handset manufacturer to join NFC trusted service manager C-Sam, a key supplier to the US Isis NFC joint venture.
Might it be because WP doesn’t and won’t have NFC? Well no, as Stefan points out, Windows Phone has their NFC guys already. And there are still people at Nokia working on NFC.
Ah I’m really gonna miss Mark. He’s a nice chap – had the opportunity to meet him at last year’s Nokia World. I remember him when he was VP Nokia Multimedia, back in 07 he did some really cool “meeting the bloggers” thing. I don’t think I was even blogging at that stage but that was a very cool effort from Nokia and Mark. You may then remember him being there when the awesome N82 was launched at Nokia World. So already very early fond memories – probably harder to stomach personally than any other Nokia execs leaving. Good luck Mark.
Source: NFC World via IntoMobile
Cheers Zane Farooq for the tip.
Category: Nokia
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- DailyDOOH » Blog Archive » How to Build An NFC Application | NFC IP | December 7, 2011
Well, this is unexpected… And perhaps not what I had in mind for Nokia’s NFC days.
actually, the nokia rotten core need to be changed, it doenst sound that bad, since they already did theyr job and now someone else will fill they places with new ideias
im sad, n9 will problably be my last nokia for a while, here in brasil Elop came and just talk about the asha phones, almost nothig about the n9, just a little about producing lumia 710 here and import lumia 800
its sad, seens that nokia look for Brazil in the low end
Sammy at least created a special version of galaxy S (with TV) to adapt ppl needes here, and released GSII much before the US
Sammy seens to be looking for my needs better than nokia, too bad that theres not a complete droid around there (NFC + MicroSD + Radio + USB OTG and specially durable…)
Every1 who knows nokia very well cant live with sammys products as they are full of problems that make u have all the advantages you get with the phone over any other brand!
this is a list of the problems I got with my SGS 1 and ther is no proper slotion for it till now spically from samsung:
1- Lag (Android common problem & it will remain like that as its a bad coding from the begging ‘java’ and they r tiring to excuse that with higher Mhz cpu)
2- screen colore
3- sound
4- GPS
5- “no more updates ICS n they phone been out less that a year ago! “nokia support phones been 3 years out!”
6- APN off/on problem
7- Battery draining ( common android issue)
and a lot more n if u search will find a lot of fix for these shits but non of them work really right!.
Thanks, but i’ll never buy something other than Nokia (Looking forward to Nokia’s next Linux OS ‘Meltime’)
i never had a sammy device, but i know ppl who did have it (galaxy S / galaxyS2 / galaxy 5)
im never heard some complains other than the commom android problens, but i agree with u, but sammy seens to be taking care of my personal intrest better than nokia, im a mobiile fan, i know about stuff, i like to learn things about it, soo, seens better have a GS2 and flash it than my E7 that cant even flash Belle
nokia dont look at me as a potencial customer, they want the low/mid end and thats not my profyle anymore
i will problably take a n9 on janary and i will go for GNexus or padphone on my birthday in March to prevent me from becoming a fanboy whitout even used other brand
i can complain about plastic cheapness, but i cant complain about plastic flexibility and resistance (HAIL for my n97 which fall from the stairs 3m straight to the ground and still works prefectly)
And the slow takeover of Microsoft has begun… Sad to see original Nokia employees being booted out in favor of microsoft employees…
They’re not being replaced by MS employees. Stop being such a negative nancy please, MS & Nokia = good.
Yes, they are being replaced. Microsoft has their own NFC people -> Nokia NFC people are given the boot.
More to follow, in various categories.
We’ll miss you sir. Good luck in your future endeavours
I’m sensing cost cutting for VP level. Very American.
well, in general Nokia clearly was getting way too management/top heavy so not necessarily a bad thing at all. ehat’s the case for these particular chaps is a different matter and pretty speculative.
so when will m$ acquire nokia?
I guess Mark did not agree on the new strategy and may have been pressured out. (also the nfc strategy has not yet been really a success)
If I remember right, he was the one who replied “I agree” to Vanjoki’s tweet on 11.11.2011 on being sad what could have been.
+1 I have the very same thoughts.
Yup, he’s the chap. He actually said ‘so true.’: http://twitter.com/#!/MASelby/status/134947812394803200
I dare not to speculate why is he leaving, but it’s either due to personal disagreement with the strategy Nokia is taking on, like many others already have, or Nokia really doesn’t need or consider NFC that much important to keep people in-house dedicated just to it, and given that Microsoft has its own team…
indeed. if only they had actually made it happen too when they were in control between 2005 (the 7710 and 770 days) and mid-2010…
Is he they who “put” the NFC ( one that can’t use for payments ) in N9?
this is sad. 3 vp’s leaving but people can rest assured that Microsoft is working on nfc, haha
didnt nokia have a huge lead in nfc? Even the top execs realize whats happening. Its makes sense though. If they don’t have their own operating system there is kinda no need for a big team.
Poor Nokia
Killing the company internally… Thats the Elop way!!!
Good going… Now throw everyone out who is not working in manufacturing facilities, rest everything MS will do lol
Get real! People come and go all the time. It means absolutely nothing. I know people who have left Nokia 2-3 times and always come back.
But when “most” of the top execs leave soon after a new strategy is undertaken, it doesn’t seem right..
Well, some of them 1) leave because the disagree with the new strategy – not surprising as they were the proponents of the old strategy 2) are offered a demotion (i.e. downgrading) but turn it down and decide to leave instead; a big part of the strategy is to cut layers and layers of management within Nokia – something that is hard to argue with as it does seem fairly evident that Nokia had become too bureaucratic, slow and top heavy 3) are outright fired as they are no longer wanted or needed or are simply considered incompetent; tough but that’s private sector for you.
No, that’s American ruthless business practice for you. There is no place for tradition or corporate culture, only money and more money. Sad.
Heh, so there are no other possible explanations eh? Glad to hear its all black and white, as usual. Life is indeed simple.
Glad to hear from you that.
Like somebody who does think very objectively.
Yeah.. the only thing disturbing the peace of mind dr_zorg gave me is this rumor of a new color called something like “krey” or “grey” or “crae” or something like that.
dr_zorg is a guy who knows exactly what he is talking about. Very intelligent and experienced guy who has been in these corporate circles for a while to realize how things work.
You on the other hand..
why should they stay? nokias cto is now based in california and nokia by itself is getting umiportant.
well hp realized what to do with apotheker.
And Nokia knew what to do with OPK.
Good move from the NFC guys. They would have been fired soon enough. Nokia will just use whatever NFC solutions and technologies Microsoft comes up with.
Honestly speaking this is smart for them to do. Nokia has pretty much dropped MeeGo and Symbian, and only these platforms support NFC.
He didn’t “jump ship”, he managed to open the hatch and barely escape the 3/4 sunken ship.
Good job Mark.
Please leave your computer and find yourself a girlfriend for the sake of your mental health.
Sincerely,
Concerned lurker.
Nah real reason must be great offer from other company
It’s alright, he’s a VP and will probably find another place to work. Honestly speaking, it is good that Nokia’s old big wigs are leaving. It is going to make the company more dynamic, less bureaucratic and will let some fresh ideas breathe through to upper management. Corporate restructuring needs to be aggressive for it to take effect.
Sure, we all have an affinity to certain individuals because of their leadership in a given area of expertise but new leaders should be given a chance to prove themselves.
And seriously, enough with the Elop crap. Nokia has never moved faster.
nokia moves faster? they have to wait for microsoft! nfc? n9 and symbian devices have it – lumia not.
rather obviously (IMO) he was talking more generally, not just about NFC
And what practical application does NFC have again? Just because us geeks think NFC is important, does not mean it actually is commercialized and used in the marketplace widely. To compare, look at the Bluetooth technology.
Also, there is no argument that N9 and Symbian are and have been technically superior than most OSes. But Symbian and N9 does not make Nokia, it is the other way around. Don’t even make me bring up the “Symbian Foundation” fiasco. Yes, THAT was the old management.
Tell that to the NAM S^3 customers who are just getting Anna. Oh, and where’s Belle? LMFAO! Nokia, same ole, same ole…..
+1 to that, Elop has done so much good for Nokia.
Perhaps yes, it is because current WP does not have NFC.
But I do think they will implement NFC on WP devices. t is just that MS will probably be taking care of the whole thing. Therefore Nokia’s NFC might not be needed by Elop.
NFC will continue to be used in Symbian and N9 for years to come, and is likely to start appearing in S40 and later Meltemi phones as well. WP is only a part of the overall strategy and MS having NFC folks does not cover it all. Plus, three NFC VPs leaving does not mean everyone working on NFC in Nokia, even with regard to WP probably, is leaving.
This debate seems to coalesce around 2 viewpoints:
1) This is good news that deadwood is leaving as Nokia needs to clear the bad management and that it will become more dynamic
2)This is inevitable once you lose control of your own destiny and strategy those that have ambition move on and those that remain the erstwhile yes men will carry on under the new regime / culture
Taking the first perspective this assumes that these guys were the architects of Nokia downfall. Well I have not seen any evidence for that and in fact Nokia was leading on NFC. Also these guys have left for competitors or startups so people in the industry must still value them.
Nokia has suffered from poor leadership and reading articles by insiders it does seem Nokia management had become bloated. However when there is a cull or change in direction inevitably those that are the more marketable in the jobs arena will move earlier than the “yes men” who will tend to linger on.
If you have senior execs who disagree with strategy then the most powerful statement they can make is to resign. MS will be deciding how and when NFC is implmented in WP as they control the code base. Nokia cannot just embed an NFC chip and then develop the software to ontop because their WP licence would prohibit such actions as it would cause fragmentation. How would you think fellow licensees like Samsung and HTC would react if Nokia is able to implement its own NFC hadware and software.
This is the reason why Nokia as the innovating company we always have known is essentially dead.