What did you learn from Stephen Elop's tenure in Nokia?

[WanderingTraveler]

Well, assuming you learned anything.

For one, I learned of how good Windows Phone is - as a platform. For another, I realized that Nokia could actually excel at software (like it or not, software was once treated as a weak point for Nokia, see the S60 5th fiasco).

The most important thing, you ask? Don't listen to the sharehoarders. I understand that not all shareholders are there just to earn money, and actually have genuine ideas that would benefit a company, but Elop just listened to the wrong people.

I feel that Nokia, as a company, would've benefited from going back to their style of the '90s. That is, spurn the analysts. If Elop did not succumb to the pressure that was their investors, I feel that Nokia would be in much better shape right now.

Oh, and the Nokia X? A product of listening to those shareholders. Or, should I say, sharehoarders.

 

[N_LaRUE]

There are some people who feel Elop is the best tech CEO that ever existed. I believe there was a thread on here that said as much. I never saw so much 'love-in' for a CEO before.

A lot of people thought Elop was a trojanhorse and many still believe that. For whatever reason, Nokia feel asleep at the wheel and instead of innovating and being #1 they fell behind the competition. Whether you believe that Elop did his job or not in Nokia is again a question of what is best for A the company or B the shareholder.

Some believe he did the best for both and has walked away a success to many.

From a personal user perspective, I feel that Nokia should have did better and whatever the reasons behind their demise was it didn't help us, the user, in anyway. Whether WP was a saviour is questionable as it hasn't really made immediate impact. Nokia has innovated as much as it could with what can only be described as a 'basic' OS. They had some leeway with MS but at the end of the day it just couldn't survive in its current form.

As for Nokia X, well I feel it's pointless. I see no sense in it and I don't see it helping either Nokia or MS in getting more users on board with WP. That's my opinion.

 

[theefman]

He should have never been hired.

 

[rodan01]

I learnt that It's really difficult for a company to evolve to a new product category after being successful in the legacy technology.
Nokia couldn't build a GREAT smartphone in the last two years. Today they finally presented an Android phone, the Nokia X which is a project with so much potential, but the phone has the most awful lag in the history of smartphones, even Firefox OS is smother. They once again failed in the implementation.
The only reason why Nokia survived until 2014 is because WP runs well in low end hardware and that gave them an advantage, a niche.