Nokia Corp.’s announcement last week of a “strategic partnership” with Microsoft Corp. was certainly big news, but it also raised a few eyebrows. Some asked if new CEO Stephen Elop, a former Microsoft man, had chosen Windows Phone 7 not because he thought it was best for the company, but because he is still in bed with Ballmer & Co.
Although Elop explained the reasoning behind the Microsoft deal, many heads were nonetheless scratched as to why Nokia didn’t choose to partner with Google Inc., whose Android OS is the current toast of mobile devices.
The other significant side-effect of the new partnership was that Nokia is finally killing off Symbian OS (long the Achilles heel of their otherwise solid products), and substantially reducing their plans for MeeGo, which many inside the company had seen as their greatest hope to regain mobile marketshare.
Now a group of Nokia shareholders are attempting to take matters into their own hands, plotting a coup d’etat against Elop and other Nokia execs, and reinstating Nokia’s previous software strategy (Yes, the strategy that got them into this mess in the first place).
The group, calling themselves Nokia Plan B, have posted their manifesto on a Facebook page, and are calling for other shareholders to vote them onto the Nokia Board of Directors so they can enact their plan.
The most notable points in their plan are:
- Immediate discharge of Stephen Elop from his duties as President and CEO of the company. Appointment of a new CEO with an international mobile industry background.
- Release one or two Windows Phone devices under a Nokia sub-brand. Only if carrier acceptance, sales volumes and profit margins are satisfactory, consider releasing more WP devices and make them available in Europe.
- MeeGo will be Nokia’s primary smart phone platform. This is where the bulk of the innovation will happen. If MeeGo does not bring great devices to market on an accelerated pace, this strategy will not work. MeeGo smart phones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products.
- Increase the lifespan of Symbian to a minimum of 5 years. Reap the profits of the existing market share and consumer preference that Symbian already enjoys in Europe and Asia. Increasingly use Symbian to target mid-tier and feature-phone segments.
- Immediate discharge of Tero Ojänpera, Niklas Savander and Mary McDowell from all their duties with the company. Other members of the Nokia Leadership Team may be discharged pending individual reviews with the Board of Directors.
The tone of their proposal is certainly interesting – they seem to have taken the Microsoft agreement not as a strategy shift to take the company forward, but as a direct attack on the company they love – the talk of ousting specific Nokia executives reeks of vendetta. Unfortunately the elements they value most in the company seem to be Symbian and MeeGo, the former being all-but obsolete, and the latter not scheduled to come to market in any meaningful form for a number of months.
Personally, having used MeeGo across a number of devices, I’d submit that their claim of the OS delivering a superior experience to iOS and Android fairly unattainable, especially given the platform’s non-existent developer base. It’s a solid OS, but I fear it is destined to be nothing more than a footnote – much like it’s predecessors Maemo and Moblin.
So, a meaningful insurgency that could topple Nokia’s leadership? No. But it’s interesting that a move designed to return Nokia to its former glory that has attracted such vocal derision from outside the company is now also being questioned from within it.
UPDATE: It would seem these bright-eyed dreamers have been given a severe reality-check by Nokia’s institutional investors and have called it quits. It was fun while it lasted, guys.
