Damn a Canadian, awesome indeed. Hope it brings more phones to North America. Plus his stint at Juniper Networks and Microsoft means he has connections inside the big US carriers ... this should make Nokia's entry into the North American market that much easier.

The Meego initiative has to much invested in it, and the plans are nearly at completion ... their is little he can influence the hardware and OS at this point ... something he hints at in the press conference when he says there are products we haven't seen yet. What he can influence is the marketing, the launch event, and the services surrounding such a hardware.

OPK had great plans, and the roadmap is a great one that foresees the future Nokia direction into Software/ Service/ and Hardware combined. His failing was that the changes took too long, and the misfires were too frequent. A Symbian Nseries still to be launched goes against what they planned early in 2009, and this production cycle of delays and extensions was getting ridiculous. A software guy like Mr. Elop should bring with him the talent to moves things within the company. Also as an outsider, he can finally fire without hesitation those who do not deliver performance in the management positions.

As a Canadian I would say we share much in the hospitality and niceness as the Finnish people do as well. I think a Canadian with this much experience compliments Nokia's work culture and should add the flare of what is required to compete in the North ... an angry beaver is a Canuck. Also from the press conference he looks very comfortable presenting something OPK did not look confident in. So I hope he is a more vocal than OPK was, and I hope Nokia is more responsive towards it's customers by having a more forthcoming and insightful CEO. Not having an accent is a good thing too in the North American market, because you can communicate without looking like a foreigner (I know sad part of life especially when we should respect someone who can probably speak more than 3 languages).

Anyways these are my viewpoints and we will see the fruits of his labor in Jan. once the transitory period ends and a new fiscal year begins.

I wanted to add that a CEO needs to get approval for dramatic changes from the board of directors. So no big suprises like a Win7 Nokia phone ... although I would love to see Nokia diversify and make an aXXX series, a wXXX series in addition to the current Meego nXXX series (a-> for an android line, w-> for win7 line). We can only dream on that one ... and make the phones compatible to all OS's ... you just buy the License or the OS installer from Nokia (a Service they can sell).