Oh dear. The news of the Nokia-Microsoft marriage hasn’t been as well received as the Finns might’ve hoped. First a number of workers walked out on the day of the announcement, and now shareholders and unions are baying for blood.
Nokia’s shareholders are understandably upset. The manufacturer’s share price has fallen 25% since last Friday. Stephen Elop didn’t have much to say at Mobile World Congress. We might see a Nokia Windows Phone 7 handset later this year. Maybe.
Nine of Nokia’s most frustrated shareholders recently made the news when they banded together to form “Nokia Plan B,” which proposed to oust Elop and switch the focus back to MeeGo. The plan was officially rejected, but that’s hardly a sign of contentment.
Meanwhile, Finnish trade union Pro wants €100,000 (plus severance) for every Nokia employee laid off as a result of the new WP7-focused direction. Pro estimates up to 5,000 (25%) of Nokia’s Finnish staff could lose their jobs.
Over in the land of the lunatics, conspiracy theorists have touted the idea that Elop, Nokia’s first foreign-born CEO, was sent from Microsoft as a “trojan horse” saboteur. Clearly that’s a little far-fetched, but amusing nonetheless. Elop does still have shares in Microsoft, but he’s selling them off just as quickly as regulations allow.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, Elop has Nokia's Annual General Meeting for shareholders to look forward to. It takes place on May 3 in Helsinki. We’re sure there’s a joke involving “hell” and “sink” in there somewhere.
Did Bill and Mindy send him to make more money for their vaccine scheme? Who cares. That is not how things like that happen. Does a guy who worked for MS (responsible for Office - a useless overpriced product), and Adobe (LOL, where to start?) understand an "ecosystem" (listen to that non-sense!) of an open software foundation? He most definitely thinks all linux-'stuff' is non-sense. That people who make stuff for free are 'crazies'... The problem is not is Elop a wooden horse full of MS bloat, the point is WHY did 'they' make him boss?! How about the Germans let George W Bush take over the rudders of Volkswagen? Or Amnesty International invited Rumsfeld to be their ambassador of Blahblah???