New Book About the Nokia Elop Era; Elop Wasn’t a Trojan, but He Made Some Mistakes

We’ve heard a lot of bits and pieces about what Nokia really was like under the reign of Elop, some good and some bad; now Jiipee tipped us off to a new book called  Operation Elop – Nokia mobile phones the last few years, which covers some of that.

In bullet points summarized by Jiipee:

– Nokia was in deep trouble already when Elop joined
– Google did in fact offer more freedom regarding Android than Nokia/Elop suggested
– The head of consultancy helping Nokia’s strategy work was heavily linked to MS
– MS contract seemed badly prepared and fitting WP to Nokia’s plans were not as easy as they thought: they didnt get such position as was marketed
– Burning platform memo was prepared by Elop and Ollila & board didnt know the content beforehand. The book showcases the impact to sales channels
– The authors give a lot of credit to Elop on how he renewed the culture and leadership style
– Conclusion is that Elop was not trojan (we all know that), but they made big mistakes and would have probably fared better/longer with Android

Just like the book reviewers state, i would like to learn more on how the strategy work was prepared and what impact the board had on it.

Some interesting bits from the source article:

The book reveals that Nokia and Elop have given a misleading picture of how the negotiations with Google actually went to. Google was willing to provide Nokia with more generous terms and conditions as are described, and Google’s Android with Nokia would have had more room to maneuver than Nokia has given to understand.

Similarly, the agreement with Microsoft to show negligence in the preparation. The book says that the conclusion of the contract after Nokia revealed many fundamental problems in Nokia’s Windows Phone-ordination plans. Nokia did not have a special status in Microsoft partner, as was the speech.

We’ve previously revealed that Nokia’s “risk assessment board” had convened before the WIndows Phone decision, and decided that WP wasn’t worth the risk, however Elop and Harlow were not to be dissuaded.

Read the full article at the link below:

Source

Thanks for the tip Jiipee

Category: Lumia, Nokia, Symbian, Video, Windows Phone