Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

NOKIA might have had problems before Elop but they were dwarfed by the problems they had after his burning platform press release.

That was Q1 2011, we're now half way through 2015 and where is Windows Phone? There's not even enough fuel to start a fire.

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

I wonder what company next will he destroy. Boston Chicken, Macromedia and Nokia were all his victims.

Wherever he lands, if I have stock in that company, I'm selling it immediately.

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

Too bad it seems that MS was a too big a mouthful for him. I suppose the next one should be about the size of Nokia, he seems to handle everything up to that pretty smoothly.

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

might be true...we will never know if there was a better option. nokia was a dead horse. what was your alternetive?

keep on working with symbian and meego. bleeding money and fire tens of tousends...
go with android and be one of many android vendors. fire tens of tousends...small sales...
build something new...you dont want to go this road...

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

Oh no quite the contrary.
Wherever he lands, make sure to buy Microsoft shares because Elop will bankrupt that company and Microsoft will acquire it for nickels.

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

Hmm. I seem to recall a similar situation in the '90s, when a popular maker of consumer electronics was facing total destruction against a rising competitor. They had a similar combination of a popular but graying line of products, and a newer, flashier, but (at that point) uncompetitive line. Their choice?

They went with option #1. For years (at least five years, I would say) they held the line, and indeed bled money and laid off lots of folks. They dropped the old line of products and doubled down on the new one, experimenting with many different (and ultimately failed) permutations, until finally they were able to hire a manager who turned things around.

This company, of course, was Apple...

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

Well, yeah, Nokia could have invested more in Meego etc and maybe they'd still be relevant. But lol at your example... Apple has always been different with and without Steve Jobs, and they now have their days counted, it'll just take a while to bring down the monster.

Also, remember that Apple got a little help from their friends: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html

M$ could have given Nokia money instead of Elop back in the day ;-)

EDIT: Actually, your wikipedia article mentions the money from M$, didn't read it, sorry, just rememberd that that had happened.

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

apple pulled it of when the market and segment was immature...but yeah...nice comback indeed...one of the best in history I would say...

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

The one thing Apple has always had is confidence (to the point of absurdity) in their own products. In the early '90s they were almost unique in not knuckling under to Microsoft, unlike other companies (like even IBM!) who seemed to give up the instant M$ started eating into their profit margins.

But other than that, there is nothing special about how Apple operates; it simply had a man at the helm with vision and drive. The products they created were, for the most part, Steve Jobs' personal vision of what a perfect PC would be. Sure, Apple found particular niches and created products to fill those niches; but everybody does that.

:) :) Ah, the cheap attempt by Microsoft to fend off the government's anti-monopoly suit. By that point, Microsoft didn't believe Apple was a real competitor. (Of course, nobody else did either.) But that was around the same time that Apple managed to rehire Steve Jobs, which was a much more useful boost to the company. ;)

Re: Elop to leave Microsoft
 

What!!! You're kidding; the personal computer came of age in the '80s, particularly when IBM commoditized it by making the design of their PC public. With Microsoft offering their OS to anyone who wanted to install it, the PC-clone industry quickly rose to push out all competitors (including Apple). By the early '90s, everyone knew what a "PC" was -- an IBM-compatible computer running Windows. (And that's still true today -- e.g., even Apple has "Mac vs. PC" advertisements, when technically Macs are also personal computers...)

Apple survived only by inserting its products around the edges of the market; with the laptop segment, with boutique high-end PCs, by coming up with popular derivative gadgets (iPod, iPhone, iPad...). Even today, Apple still hasn't dared to go back into the traditional expandable desktop PC market (although I think they could get away with it if they tried).

But yeah, Apple has fought back, and in fact is still in the process of getting back into a fully mature market...