Perhaps Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop is going to ditch the Meego OS and go with Windows Phone 7 after all.
Breaking on Reuters this Wednesday morning:
NOKIA <NOK1V.HE> ENDS FIRST MEEGO PHONE PROJECT BEFORE LAUNCH -SOURCES
NOKIA <NOK1V.HE> SPOKESMAN DECLINES TO COMMENT
All of which puts into perspective a 1,200 word memo Elop has purportedly fired off to Nokia employees.
Nokia won’t comment on the authenticity of the email but everyone we have talked to thinks it is real.
And here, via Engadget, are selected highlights of said memo.
Burning platforms:
I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.
And, we have more than one explosion – we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.
For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.
MeeGo:
While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.
The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable. We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough.
We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.
Symbian:
At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.
Falling market share:
Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It’s also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on. How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?
Burning platforms again:
This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia.
We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven’t been delivering innovation fast enough. We’re not collaborating internally. Nokia, our platform is burning.
Hmm.
Stephen Elop, the Red Adair of the corporate world.
Related links:
Nokia’s night of the long knives – FT Alphaville
Google’s Android overtakes Nokia’s Symbian – FT
Nokia faces challenge of shrinking market share – FT
Dear Nokia and Microsoft CEOs – FT Alphaville