Stephen Elop interviewed at Wired

This is another interview with Stephen Elop, this time over at Wired.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/qa-nokia-ceo-stephen-elop/all/

When asked about the HTC signature WP, Elop defends the Nokia Lumia brand. He says they could have called the 920, Windows Phone 920 but Nokia Lumia is much more than that. Nokia has put significant investments into the WP to make WP and Nokia stand out. The Nokia brand stands for something unique and Nokia is proud to have their phones known as Nokia Lumia first. (HTC can go suck it up to MS as much as they like with their Lumia clones. They never were one to do something original).

When asked if Elop/Nokia knew that first gen devices could not get WP8, he pretty much says yes. It was in the best interest of everyone to advance WP (if Nokia did not, WP would be dead. Face it MS. And if Nokia didn’t they would not have a platform to differentiate the way they needed to – not going to discuss it again why they chose this platform over others as we’ve been doing that for 18 months. Congratulations to MS on making their restart of an OS require another restart halfway. It’s like they specifically do things to fail in mobile).

Nokia wanted to make sure the older platform gets support, such as some new features including the WP7.8 homescreen.

Next up, they discuss why people should switch to Lumia. Now Elop says quite correctly than being cheaper is not a good approach. Being better and being able to differentiate is the way to go. (Nokia Lumia 920 offers so much more compared to the first gen Lumias. They can actually go toe to toe on other smartphones in terms of specs and show off several other features they won’t have).

Some other quick points:

• Nokia have 5 main businesses in addition to smartphone
• Asha very profitable
• As much as some people like to troll this point, the likes of Amazon and Oracle are paying Nokia to use their services and not the other way around.
• NSN – telecommunication a tough market, problematic over last few years but generated cash over last few quarters  and he says NSN gets better from here on in.
• IP – Nokia want to monetise and protect their iP (so the likes of grubby HTC don’t go around photocopying things Samsung stylie)

Future of mobile phones? Fraction of the time used as a phone – Nokia sees them as a collection of sensors, that sense what you’re doing and going in the world around you.

that concept of mobility and connecting those worlds together all through great sensor technology is going to be really important. There’s a lot of opportunity there.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/qa-nokia-ceo-stephen-elop/all/

On future devices, tvs, tablets? Nokia will participate into a greater or lesser extent into the seamless experience users are expecting, moving from their phone, tv, tablet, automobile etc.

Cheers Viipottaja for the tip!

Category: Lumia, Nokia