No. Elop tried to save the handset business, but it was too late. The demise happened during the time when Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was CEO (2006-2010), though I think it actually started already before that, in 2004-2005.
This is a thing I see many people bickering about, but I think they are misguided. Elop tried what he could, and in fact the sale of handset business to Microsoft - which he negotiated - was a very good deal for Nokia, the company (and its shareholders). The price was good. Nokia, the company, is still very much alive and kicking.
The platform for handset business was indeed burning when Elop made the famous speech. His mistake was to signal so strongly to the public the ramp-down of Symbian, which accelerated its demise and loss of sales. But what was laying in the future was clear for anyone to see. The writing was on the wall.
I felt the things were going wrong in about 2005, when Nokia was the market leader, and complacency crept in. Managers and executives forgot about the outside world, and in their comfortable market-leader position the logistics side (always strong in Nokia) was allowed to run things. New phones had under-powered processors, for instance - just to save a few cents a piece, which is huge money when you make millions of devices, but in the end it meant that the user experience suffered and new UX innovations were dumped.
Too much trust in the "we're the gorilla now" position.
It looks a little bit like Apple is now in the same situation. Their cash flow seems unstoppable, but what new are have they recently brought in?
EDIT: FWIW, I was in the infra side (which is still there, although I was made redundant), not in the handset business. I had a lot of friends and former colleagues in the handset side. So I had some visibility and insight to what happened, but no personal axe to grind.
This is a thing I see many people bickering about, but I think they are misguided. Elop tried what he could, and in fact the sale of handset business to Microsoft - which he negotiated - was a very good deal for Nokia, the company (and its shareholders). The price was good. Nokia, the company, is still very much alive and kicking.
The platform for handset business was indeed burning when Elop made the famous speech. His mistake was to signal so strongly to the public the ramp-down of Symbian, which accelerated its demise and loss of sales. But what was laying in the future was clear for anyone to see. The writing was on the wall.
I felt the things were going wrong in about 2005, when Nokia was the market leader, and complacency crept in. Managers and executives forgot about the outside world, and in their comfortable market-leader position the logistics side (always strong in Nokia) was allowed to run things. New phones had under-powered processors, for instance - just to save a few cents a piece, which is huge money when you make millions of devices, but in the end it meant that the user experience suffered and new UX innovations were dumped.
Too much trust in the "we're the gorilla now" position.
It looks a little bit like Apple is now in the same situation. Their cash flow seems unstoppable, but what new are have they recently brought in?
EDIT: FWIW, I was in the infra side (which is still there, although I was made redundant), not in the handset business. I had a lot of friends and former colleagues in the handset side. So I had some visibility and insight to what happened, but no personal axe to grind.