Nokia Plan B calls for Elop’s ouster

February 15, 2011 By Geoff Duncan

Some Nokia investors have launched "Nokia Plan B," aiming to stack the company's board of directors and, among other things, show new CEO Stephen Elop the door.

It’s no secret that not everybody in Finland is comfortable with new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s radical direction shifts, including what appears to be an all-or-nothing stake of the company’s future on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. However, some Nokia backers are doing more than just grumbling about it: a group of nine unidentified young Nokia investors—all of whom claim to have worked for Nokia at various times—have launched Nokia Plan B. What’s the plan? Pack Nokia’s board of directors, put MeeGo and Nokia’s Qt environment back at the center of the company’s strategy, hire top young talent from around the world…and show Stephen Elop and selected other top-level Nokia execs the door.

The investors’ “Nokia Plan B” doesn’t actually call for the company to walk away from Windows Phone 7: it sees an alliance with Microsoft as having utility as a “tactical exercise” targeting the North American smartphone market—where Nokia essentially has no presence at all. Under the Plan B vision, Nokia would produce a limited number of Windows Phone handsets under a Nokia “sub-brand,” and consider ramping up the project (or extending it to Europe) only if sales volumes justify the effort.

However, Nokia Plan B would see MeeGo re-instated as the company’s main smartphone platform, with development centered on Nokia’s Qt framework. They would also like to see Symbian’s lifespan extended by at least another five years to capitalize on its broad adoption in Europe and Asia. However, rather than simple returning to Nokia’s pre-Elop strategies, the investors would also see the company end distributed R&D and R&D outsourcing, eject selected members of Nokia’s current leadership team along with Elop, and aggressively recruit young talent out of universities to breathe new life into Nokia’s products. The group has not yet offered plans for how it would cope with Nokia’s existing Ovi services or ever-aging S40 platform.

The Nokia Plan B proposal seems aimed at forcing Nokia to keep control of both its hardware and software platforms, so that the company can move more nimbly and directly innovate its products without dependencies on other companies. The strategy has certainly worked for Apple…although Nokia has been pursuing a similar tack for years and has largely been marginalized in the smartphone market, despite essentially inventing it.

The young investors behind Nokia Plan B don’t have much time to rally support from other Nokia investors if they want to get themselves elected to the company board: the company’s next Annual General Meeting is May 3, 2011.

Showing 3 comments

Guest at 1:20am 16th February 2011 To B or not to B, that's the question.
PeepingTom at 12:51pm 15th February 2011 Heh, Plan B sounds good.
AveMix at 12:51pm 15th February 2011 Elop's plan makes perfect sense to all those who want to see Nokia become another LG, Samsung, HTC etc. To the rest of us, who see great value in adding more competition and breadth to the OS's fight, seeing Nokia aspire to become the best it can in both Hardware and Software sectors carries a far greater value. The investors will have a wager in their hands either way, because claiming one plan more sensible than the other is mere guesswork at this point. People will have to choose according to their values. I personally mourn the Nokia Microsoft marriage. I don't understand who possibly could become excited about that. Taking the bull by its horns with the Meego effort make a lot of sense at this point and it is only a good thing for the consumers. If you don't like a device that carries an OS that, not only can deliver something completely new and inventive, but is also developed by an open ecosystem, you can buy other products in the market. I'm sure you'll find something to suit your needs, but the strongest possible self-standing Nokia will force those devices to be ever better. Consumers will be the winners at the end. It is clear that Microsoft insisted that Meego is to be placed in the background. They know that if Meego reaches its potential, it will only eat up Microsoft's pitiful market share even further. I sincerely hope that Nokia finds a way to break that deal ... for the benefit of us all.