Nokia's Elop Set To Receive $25 Million Bonus After Acquisition 196
jones_supa writes with an update on the Microsoft purchase of Nokia. From the article: "Stephen Elop, the former Nokia Oyj chief executive officer who is rejoining Microsoft, is set to get more than $25 million if the Finnish company completes the sale of its handset business to the software maker. Microsoft will pay 70 percent of the projected total amount of about 18.8 million euros ($25.5 million), and Nokia the remainder, according to a proxy filing by Nokia today. The value of Elop's reward is estimated using Nokia's Sept. 6 closing share price and may still change. Nokia shares have dropped by more than a third since Elop was hired on Sept. 10, 2010, even with the stock's gain since the sale to Microsoft was announced. Nokia shareholders are set to vote on the transaction Nov. 19. Elop will move back to Microsoft as part of the $7.2 billion takeover. He is also a candidate to succeed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer."
Ahhh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good to see the old boys network is thriving.
They don't choose candidates with successful track records, just the ones who they play golf with.
From the sounds of it, Elop completely fucked Nokia, is selling the farm to Microsoft, and will make out like a bandit and get the chance to be considered to run Microsoft.
All in all, I'd say the shareholders of Nokia are getting the shaft here. This is just corporate pillaging.
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What makes you think that was not a success?
Re: Ahhh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
MS got Nokia cheap, Elop gets millions. I'd say it was a success for both of them. Nokia? They got screwed from the inside out.
Re: Ahhh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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According to Forbes 2.2B of the sale price was for the patents. So it looks like MS can keep making money off the Android licensing business they have going.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2013/09/03/microsoft-to-buy-nokias-mobile-business-for-5b-license-patents-for-2-2b/
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Re:Ahhh ... (Score:5, Informative)
You are exactly correct: embrace extend extinguish, same as always. This is no different. The extend was Elop -> Nokia, and back to MS after the damage is done.
Exactly like Belluzzo (Score:5, Informative)
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"Now I have become Richard, the destroyer of micro architectures."
Re:Ahhh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice MS is giving most of the money. It's the payoff for selling Nokia for cheap.
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The shareholders hired Elop. The shareholders kept Elop on. It will be the shareholders who approve the buyout. And it will be the shareholders who vote to reward Elop.
So yes the sharehodlers are getting the shaft, but they're asking for it. I don't understand the motivation behind bondage and dominance, but who am I to judge the shareholders' sexual proclivities?
Re:Ahhh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Smaller shareholders were never asked and they were told that Elop was trying to run the company well and not deliberately tank it - but he tanked it deliberately and is now being paid for doing so. he should be sued, pretty much everyone in the world thinks he deliberately tanked it.
See, if the board had issued a stockmarket info piece saying that they hired Elop to destroy the firm then it would be all legit - it being legit being directly tied to if they announced their intentions to stockholders. but they didn't. if the board fucks small investors deliberately that's illegal and they of course had inside information that he was going to fuck up the company in various ways - best example of deliberately fucking up the company being to publicly announce a product line as dead - a product line that was selling more units than ever before in it's life, that same year was also the best ever for symbian app revenues for developers - in panic he announced it dead to kill it. Tying Nokia to a shitty "smart"phone platform was just icing on that shitcake.
That he is getting a bonus for finalizing Nokias death is not that much of a surprise though, since his career possibilities outside of MS are pretty much burnt - because he is a shit CEO, like, he is really really bad at that job while being quite good in taking bribes, only fscking idiot would put a guy like that in charge. I can't see Gates putting him in charge of MS because all Elop would do would be to sell it to Oracle in 4 years(He would find a way, first by announcing that Windows is dead because ,if you count smartphones and tablets as computers, then it's marketshare has tanked and will be 0% if current trends continue in 5 years(insert xckcd comic about trends) and then he would announce they're going to go all cloud with Oracles cloud tools "before it's too late" and then it would just naturally flow from there..).
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Good to see the old boys network is thriving.
They don't choose candidates with successful track records, just the ones who they play golf with.
From the sounds of it, Elop completely fucked Nokia, is selling the farm to Microsoft, and will make out like a bandit and get the chance to be considered to run Microsoft.
All in all, I'd say the shareholders of Nokia are getting the shaft here. This is just corporate pillaging.
Aye, squire Anonymous, it be makin' pirates appear nearly civil, by ways of comparison. I be getting downhearted. ox)P-(
Bonny job Master Elop, yer company is headed for Davy Jones locker, here be yer booty!
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"From the sounds of it, Elop completely fucked Nokia, is selling the farm to Microsoft, and will make out like a bandit and get the chance to be considered to run Microsoft."
In other words, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!
What do you think Elop took the job for? First thing he did was kill all other development at Nokia except Windows Phone. There's been speculation since his first day at Nokia that he was a MS plant.
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Also ran Android? Yeah, like anyone has made a bundle selling anything Windows on the mobile platform in a long time. It was only profitable when it was the only game in town.
As for direct involvement, well, the "tank Nokia and buy them at discount" plan had been hatched long before Elop even left Microsoft. He played his part perfectly.
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Before anyone bothers to carefully craft a response to the poster above, have a look at his comment history [slashdot.org]: this is one of the clearest examples of a Microsoft shill that I've ever seen on Slashdot.
If you were honest you would have put: "Before anyone bothers to engage in a reasoned debate *I* shall step in with an ad hominem attack and show how my thoughts are superior over this loser. You know because I don't actually have the ability to debate them. " Sad!
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Before anyone bothers to carefully craft a response to the poster above, have a look at his comment history [slashdot.org]: this is one of the clearest examples of a Microsoft shill that I've ever seen on Slashdot.
Hang on a second. I read a page and a half of his / her posting history, and that's not a shill. I'm throwing away the mod points I've used in this thread to correct the unfair accusation. And, for the record, I hate MicroSoft (and Apple, and am very wary of Google).
I thought you'd uncovered one of those guys from a year or two ago that always got a lengthy first post on any MS or Google story with gushing, orgasmic MS-will-save-the-world or Google-will-destroy-western-civilisation diatribe.
This guy, MaW
Anti-shill alert (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone bothers to carefully craft a response to the poster above, have a look at his comment history [slashdot.org]: this is one of the clearest examples of a Microsoft shill that I've ever seen on Slashdot.
Despite your post's high "informative" mod points (at the moment) I do not believe you are correct. I was curious, so I actually did take a look at MaWeiTao's comment history, as you suggested, and see no evidence of anything but fairly well-reasoned and balanced posts on a variety of subjects, including Microsoft, where he seems to hold a remarkably neutral position rarely seen on this forum. Perhaps that is the problem? His argument [slashdot.org] that the Slashdot community tends to harbor foaming-at-the-mouth purposeless hatred for everything Microsoft does even when they haven't really done anything wrong seems to have been right on point, and even the mods agreed with him on that particular day.
Evidence of being a Microsoft shill, I do not see. What I do see is that you launched an apparently unjustified ad hominem attack against someone you happen to disagree with. Just because this person has a slightly different opinion and/or perspective about Apple and/or Microsoft and/or Nokia than you do does not make them a shill. Did MaWeiTao arouse your ire precisely because he tends to post using a very neutral, non-confrontational tone of voice? Kind of like me? He fails to constantly attack Microsoft sufficiently so that makes him a shill? His opinions could hardly be considered praise. They're just neutral.
I now wait with bated* breath for someone to baselessly accuse me of being a Microsoft shill as well, for having the temerity to defend someone who has been accused (and apparently convicted by some) of being a Microsoft shill.
* Yes that is the correct spelling. Look it up. A dictionary lookup a day keeps ignorance at bay. I just made that up.
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the Slashdot community tends to harbor foaming-at-the-mouth purposeless hatred for everything Microsoft does
Unless, of course, a comparison is being made with Apple at the time...
Re: Ahhh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Some have suggested that Nokia should have adopted Android. There's already an overwhelming glut of Android devices on the market. Samsung is the dominant player by a huge margin with LG, HTC, Sony fighting over scraps. So what would be Nokia's strategy? Enter the fray as an also ran and hope that in the next 5+ years they somehow evolve into a relevant player? Don't forget that they were already heavily bleeding cash by this point.
If there is a meme that needs to die about Nokia is this absurd notion that Windows Phones are somehow not competing with the Android phones.
Re:Ahhh ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have heard rumours that Nokia was so unhappy with the sales of Windows Phones ( or more likely, their profit margin on the things) that they were considering dumping them for Android - and that the MS takeover is a reaction to that.
I'm not sure if it was the board who were pushing for that, and Elop snitched on the plans to his old buddies, or if Elop figured it all out (on his own!) that he'd end up forcing the takeover.
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Nokia's decline started over a decade ago when they thought the future of mobile phones was disposable fashion accessories.
Is that not what they are? Was their problem was being too early in coming to that conclusion?
What? (Score:5, Informative)
Read the blogs following Nokia and check financial statements. Although declining, Noka was profitable company until Elop took over.
Then sharp decline and mercy killing by Microsoft.
It had very bad smell from beginning.
Re:Ahhh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, Stephen Elop wasn't directly involved with much of the negotiation that happened between Microsoft and Nokia.
WTF? The CEO wasn't involved in takeover negotiations? If he wasn't involved then he wasn't CEO.
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Keeping meego and going forward with that might have actually got them somewhere. They had the resources just fine, until they fired them to keep the books looking a little better for a few months.
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What complete BS. Nokia's smartphone unit was making profits, had incrasing smartphone sales, and was far bigger than apple or samsung before they switched to windows phone. Only after this, sales dropped and sales turned into losses. Just look it up, the numbers are out there.
Re:Ahhh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is hogwash. Elop killed the company's feature phone business which was doing fine for the time being. Yes, Nokia needed help. Yes, it was on a slope downward and needed to figure out how to compete. But Elop didn't do that. Elop jumped forward without covering the company's behind.
That he made a wrong choice of where to jump to, that it suspicious in hindsight, those are irrelevant. He didn't work to preserve the part of the business which worked and would have kept working for several more years if he hadn't driven a stake into it -- that is his massive sin of incompetance, or perhaps worse.
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Nokia could compete very well on hardware quality on the Android platform. Sure, there's a gigantic glut of android phones, but the vast majority are cheap plastic garbage. If the 1020 was available on my carrier and had Android, it would be a no-brainer for me. And you're wrong: no one is talking about the 1020 because of Windows Phone 8, they're talking about the amazing camera on it.
Fail (Score:2)
First of all. Android isnt an instant success guarantee that some people seem to postulate.
Obviously you need to distinguish yourself. I mean, rock solid hardware, bloody good cameras, you know things like that.
But the big, bloody obious point to be made. Do you know a single phone manufacturer that sells more Windows phones than Android phones? I mean, quite a few have both in stock. There are enough models around that are available with either Android or Windows. Please enlighten me if there are any of th
Re:Ahhh ... (Score:5, Informative)
You need to read up on the facts before making such statements. First, Stephen Elop wasn't directly involved with much of the negotiation that happened between Microsoft and Nokia.
I could them telling Elop not to be involved for the sake of conflicts of interest; however, my guess is that Elop was involved on the Microsoft side about this kind of thing before he took the position at Nokia.
Secondly, and more importantly, Nokia was as good as dead without Microsoft and Windows Phone.
Quite incorrect. I'm familiar with quite a few people who worked for Nokia and they had a great line up coming about. The only MeeGo-based phone ever sold (the N900) did far better than any WIndows Phones, had rave reviews, etc. It did so well that when Nokia kicked it to the curb the employees who worked on it started a new company (Jolla) and are now producing it under a new name - SailFish - and still getting rave reviews, a good audience, etc. That could have been Nokia - only better since Nokia had a full pipeline (some of which Jolla picked up in terms of sales channels) that they could have really pumped it full with.
Nokia's decline started over a decade ago when they thought the future of mobile phones was disposable fashion accessories. When they finally got into smartphones late in the game they chose technological dead ends.
Again, incorrect. They did make some mistakes with how they handled Symbian. However, they had a very large market using Symbian and they had setup a complete transition for customers and partners to move from Symbian to MeeGo. Something that got completely tossed out in the move to Windows.
Praise Symbian or Meego to your heart's content but it's all irrelevant. Nokia didn't have the resources to turn either into a relevant platform.
Incorrect. Nokia had plenty of capability to turn MeeGo into a competitor to iOS and Android.
There was far too much effort and expense required to turn them into viable competitors to Android or iOS, let alone then getting third parties to support the platform with apps.
Again incorrect. They had a very viable platform with a large community of developers under Symbian that they were providing a means of transition to MeeGo for. They had all the third party apps - and one of the biggest and oldest app stores (Ovi) to do it with.
Some have suggested that Nokia should have adopted Android. There's already an overwhelming glut of Android devices on the market.
There is now. There were not that many when Elop started at Nokia. Android was well established - it was quickly becoming a dominant player - but many had not yet aligned themselves to it. It was obvious Android would be #1 or #2 alongside iOS. Either way, Android with a transition plan for their existing Symbian partners would have let them keep what they had - a very sizeable chunk of the mobile market.
Samsung is the dominant player by a huge margin with LG, HTC, Sony fighting over scraps.
FYI - Samsung picked up that position and margin in the wake of people's reaction to Elop's burning memo platform and total annihilation of their Symbian and MeegGo products in favor of a Windows Phone they had not yet finished making. If Elop had not pre-emptively killed MeeGo then they would have had kept that dominant position and Samsung would have had to fight to get there.
So what would be Nokia's strategy? Enter the fray as an also ran and hope that in the next 5+ years they somehow evolve into a relevant player?
That was certainly the position in taking on Windows phone.
Don't forget that they were already heavily bleeding cash by this point.
Again, as others pointed out they were still profitable - which means they were not bleeding cash. You only bleed cash when your books go
For some reason... (Score:5, Funny)
...the phrase "thirty pieces of silver" keeps coming to mind...
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Well, here "Microsoft" tells you enough.
Re:For some reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I know, right. Judas sold out cheap.
Conscience? (Score:5, Insightful)
But I suppose it isn't too hard on a pillow made of 250,000 Benjamins
Re:Conscience? (Score:5, Insightful)
$25 million buys an awful lot of Ambien
And, hookers and blow if needed.
Re:Conscience? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Conscience? (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh, now, cynicism!
It's just the Great Invisible Hand changing the lightbulb.
The Great Invisible Hand has probably already advanced the careers and earnings potentials of all of the staff that were let go as a result.
Stop thinking like a pinko-commie.
Like a dragon... (Score:5, Funny)
On a huge pile of money!
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Companies are expendable constructs, so they are often expended. They exist to turn a profit for those who control them.
Note I didn't say "invest in them" though those may overlap. :-)
Ranier Wolfcastle Answer (Score:2)
Re:Conscience? EFlop has (Score:2)
no more conscience than EFlops Redmond puppet master, Vladimir Ballmer.
Nokia was RIPPED OFF! (Score:5, Funny)
I could have run their business into the ground for half that much!
Re:Nokia was RIPPED OFF! (Score:5, Informative)
You might not have dug quite as deep into the ground though. It takes special skills to fail so extensively.
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I'm a flamingly liberal academic. I have no understanding of business. I don't worship at the altar of "free
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My similarly pinko commie understanding is that compensation is voted on by the board and these folks are generally board members of other companies where their board members are executives. So they all give each other huge salaries and raises for fear if they vote against they might no get huge salaries and lose out on crazy raises.
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Re:Nokia was RIPPED OFF! (Score:5, Informative)
You need to work on your pyschopathy. Everyone has some psychopathic tendencies, but if you want to understand a CEO you need to embrace and extend (but certainly not extinguish) those traits.
Stomp on little animals. Steal money from children. Get elected to some office and perform some official malfeasance. Find a trophy wife or two (or husband, lets be 21st century about this). Read up on biographies of famous people.
You seem like an intelligent, hard working person. It's not beyond your grasp.
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The real game is played at the board level and executives. The company itself is just a stage - nobody cares about the company in the long run - one can always incorporate another. The board and t
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What I find funny is that most people on the street are so negative when someone who has pitched a perfect game in major league baseball gets paid a lot ... the performance of these sportsmen can be measured extremely accurately, the level of income they generate for their clubs can be estimated pretty well ... and yet they make too much money. Whereas management who's performance can't be measured and the level of income they generate for their companies is completely fucking unknown deserve the big bucks
A comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
That'd be like giving captain Schettino a bonus when the Costa Concordia is salvaged, even though he's the dolt who sank it.
Re:A comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
No. That's like a salvage company taking over the sunken ship for pennies and rehiring the captain they sent there.
Corporate assasination is relatively easy. Corporate poisoning is difficult. He had to make Nokia cheap as fast as possible but without completely killing it or losing the technological potential or IP assets. Plus, narrowly avoid crossing the line that would cause either legal problems or massive shareholder outrage. That's a hard job. The bonus is well earned.
Very good... and a better suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
when, not if; Elop rejoins Microsoft; Google and the Android phone developers could reward him another $1 bn for achieving the same spectacular success he did at Finland.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the damage is done. Nokia is dead, the spider venom injected years ago has already liquefied the innards, all that's left is for the spider to suck the guts back out. Stopping it now isn't going to save Nokia.
All we can hope is that future traders will see incoming Microsoft leadership as a strong sell signal.
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The problem is that the damage is done. Nokia is dead, the spider venom injected years ago has already liquefied the innards, all that's left is for the spider to suck the guts back out. Stopping it now isn't going to save Nokia.
All we can hope is that future traders will see incoming Microsoft leadership as a strong sell signal.
So...the optimal outcome is that MS will be able to perform this kind of tactic more quickly??
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture [wikipedia.org]
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No, no,no. A bribe is when you give the money up front.
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Returning to the Mothership (Score:5, Funny)
E-lop. Phone. Hoooome.
Not bad (Score:2)
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Or maybe 575?
Latest report says they have 87k employees. I don’t know how many are in the D&S division that Microsoft is buying but they do produce about ½ the revenues so I am going to guess that they have ½ the employees.
CEOs and Weather Forecasters (Score:5, Funny)
Excerpt from the new reality gameshow: Shareholder Jeopardy
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Don't leave out the weatherman. That's almost daily!
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... you read the subject line of this thread, right? That little box over where you type stuff?
And people wonder why we hate CEOs (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this right. He took over Nokia 3 years ago. In that time their stock price has dropped by more than a third. In any way you measure it, he has failed as the head of the company. So they decide to sell to Microsoft, because he has been unable to do his job well and do anything to keep them from sinking further. And he will be REWARDED with $25 million?!?!?! So for helping his company continue to fail, he will get a $25 million dollar bonus over what is I'm sure a fairly ridiculous compensation package.
And to top it off, he is on the short list of people to become the new Microsoft CEO? They really are considering basically giving him a huge promotion for being unable to turn Nokia around and letting them get so bad off that selling to MS was their only option? CEOs are absolutely rewarded for failure, because his performance can't be seen as anything other than a failure.
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CEOs are absolutely rewarded for success, because his performance can't be seen as anything other than a success by Microsoft.
There, fixed that for you!
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In any way you measure it, he has failed as the head of the company.
Some people will say that the company was in decline when he joined; he was successful in making the decline smaller. E.g. they didn't actually go bankrupt.
(I think those people are deluded, but that's just my opinion).
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No, Microsoft is rewarding him. His job was to make Nokia cheap for Microsoft to purchase. He did a fantastic job. So they are rewarding him.
Microsoft has seen that Elop is a fantastic candidate - he is willing to ruin other companies for Microsoft's benefit. Can Microsoft ask for a more loyal candidate for a CEO?
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Sounds like Wall Street Rules, where success is rewarded and so is failure, just a little less so.
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I am going to disagree with you. Sometimes you want to throw cash at the CEO to go away. If you don’t they will hold on to the bitter end and they will make sure it is bitter. You are making the assumption that he ran the company into the ground. Nokia had issues before they hired Elop and I don’t think he made the situation any worse. (Nor did he make the situation better so there is that.)
I will point out that the 25m comes from the change of control clause – he would have been paid that
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I might question the amount but not the principle.
I believe I speak for most slashdotters in saying that $25 US dollars would have been plenty.
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I think all of the people he fired & the projects he gutted point to Elop making it worse.
This guy is a cut & dry corporate psychopath. Make no bones about it. Juniper, Adobe, he's been fucking with companies his entire career.
http://boingboing.net/2011/02/14/nokias-radical-ceo-h.html [boingboing.net]
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Well, of course. (Score:4, Insightful)
Money paid for value received. Microsoft got what they wanted, an artificially undervalued cell division, and paid accordingly.
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There is that.
I predict that Microsoft will find a reason to exit the phone market in two-three years, stating that hardware is not their core competency or something similar.
Why all the complacency? (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew this was going to happen. EVERYONE knew this was going to happen the moment we heard a Microsoft guy was going to be put in charge. EVERY step this guy has taken has led to this.
I always remember Nokia as being a point of national pride for the finns! They loved to brag about it, being in the forefront of a hot and growing tech industry. Why are they letting an American company walk in and scoop it all up in what is essentially a giant fraudulent business exchange? So many high-tech jobs lost. Where is the outrage?
I know Finland isn't the US, but why haven't executives been hauled in front of whatever the equivalent of congress is there to explain why a key industry has been sabotaged and sold overseas?
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Nokia was a finnish company, owned by finns. Later it was majority owned by US investment co, US mutuals funds et.c. They control the board, appoint a US CEO.
The nationality of ownership changed. Nokia listed on NYSE since 1994. The owners thought that Elop was the right man to lead the company.
Good news for Jolla (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that Jolla is having their second round of pre-orders today (in Finland only), I expect Finns, angry at the looting of one of Finland's biggest and most well-known companies by Microsoft, are more likely than ever to throw money at a Finnish phone maker founded by ex-Nokia guys who quit and/or were fired under Elop...
So we have the Peter Pinnacle.. (Score:2)
We have the Peter Pinnacle [slashdot.org] when Ballmer announced he was leaving. I guess this makes this situation the old, tried and tested, Peter Principle. I've already dumped my Microsoft stock a long time ago but when there's speculation that this retard will be Ballmer's replacement, I can't help but think that shareholders and customers will be wanting Ballmer back! That in and of itself is abhorrent but if you're going to get burned in a fire or boiled in oil I guess it pretty much doesn't matter which path you
Quoting directly from VentureBeat (Score:5, Interesting)
"A high ranking VP of a corporate giant becomes the new CEO of a company in a different business, in a different country. He doesn’t sell his home in Seattle, nor does his family move with him, even though he’s ostensibly going to be there permanently. Over the next three years, he makes counterintuitive decisions that abandon his new company’s core strengths, and their value plummets to a tiny fraction of what it was.
You get the idea. Essentially, the theory here — and this has been floating around for a while — is that Stephen Elop became the CEO of Nokia to soften the company up for the Microsoft takeover left Nokia without its hardware business."
It is so blindingly obvious. If anyone doesn't see this, they are beyond hope. One might quote the Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice....", but it simply does not account for the amount of maneuvering and the number of counterintuitive senseless decisions that made this acquisition possible. What is more applicable is: "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck,.....".
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Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Stupidity can not explain the decisions made here. Only malice can.
Such breathtaking gall! (Score:2)
Mission Accomplished (Score:2)
Executives do not play by the same rules as the rest of us. The can obviously act in the worst interests of their company and shareholders, and are never taken to task for it.
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What are you talking about? People were buying Nokia phones! Other than the US, Nokia was the top seller of dumbphones, featurephones, and smartphones pretty much everywhere. Yes, they had some serious internal problems, but their market position was very strong. Even if they had introduced nothing new, if they had kept just selling Symbian phones with gradual improvements, they wouldn't have sunk like they did with Winblows Phoney!
An Inspiration To Us All (Score:2)
How appropriate (Score:2)
Elop shoulders his booty as he stepped over the rail onto the winning ship.
Yeah, new MS motto. (Score:2)
Good job. Well done. Nokia shareholders are probably the most happy about it.
A fitting name in hungarian (Score:2)
Ellop (with double l) means 'to steal' in hungarian.
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Unless the former and future MS exec had some influence on Nokia's fall into the pit of despair. Like, for example, running it poorly.
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Therefore, $25 million is a pittance compraed to the billions that Nokia shareholders would have lost had the deal not gone through.
How much would they have lost if Elop hadn't slit the company's throat in the first place to butcher it for Microsoft?