The three affected plants focus on smartphone production, and Nokia said it planned to shift much of that work to Asia, in order to be closer to its suppliers and speed up the time it takes to get products ready. Nokia will continue to do some customization work at all three plants.

“With the planned changes, our factories at Komarom, Reynosa and Salo will continue to play an important role serving our smartphone customers,” Nokia Executive VP Niklas Savander said in a statement. “They give us a unique ability to both provide customization and be more responsive to customer needs.”

The cuts will be phased in through the end of the year.

Nokia, of course, is in the midst of a major transformation, as it makes Windows Phone its primary operating system, shifting away from its homegrown Symbian OS.

The company previously announced other rounds of job cuts, including one related to the closure of a plant in Romania.

Baldauf was Executive Vice President and General Manager of Nokia’s Networks business from 1998 until 2005. She had joined Nokia in 1983 and held several executive positions there, including VP of its Asia Pacific unit from 1997 to 1998, and president of Nokia Cellular Systems from 1988 to 1996. She sat on N Executive Board of Nokia from 1994 until January 2005. She’s also a director of German automaker Daimler and of three Finnish companies one of which is the computer security firm F-Secure.

The filing reads in full:

On January 18, 2012, Sari M. Baldauf notified the Board of Directors of Hewlett-Packard Company (“HP”) that she will not stand for re-election at the next annual meeting of stockholders. Ms. Baldauf will continue to serve as a director of HP until HP’s next annual meeting of stockholders, which is scheduled to be held on March 21, 2012.

It’s not entirely clear whether HP will move quickly to put another director on its board or not.

The world’s largest cell-phone company by volume posted a net loss of €68 million ($93.6 million), beating Wall Street expectations of a €321 million loss. Sales dropped 13% to €8.98 billion.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Along with other Internet giants, Google has spent large amounts on building server capacity, to allow users remote access to stored files and programs through so-called cloud computing. In the past two years, it has converted an old paper mill close to the small town of Hamina, on the Baltic Sea coast of Finland, into a massive data center.

The mill was built to produce paper for magazines and newspapers, but the paper industry has seen demand for its products decrease as competition from online media has left many newspapers struggling. Paper manufacturer Stora Enso Oyj closed production at the mill in 2008, and Google saw the opportunity to fill the structure with the technology that contributed to the demise of papermaking in Hamina. A main attraction for the U.S.-based company was the cool Finnish climate.

Read the rest of this pst on the original site »

Finland’s Rovio Entertainment Ltd., the game’s developer, this month will publish the first in a line of books, “Bad Piggies Egg Recipes,” with such fare as egg-salad sandwiches and egg sushi. The title refers to the game’s porcine thieves, who become targets for an enraged group of birds after stealing their eggs.

Next up: Angry Birds in the classroom.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

As both companies’ chief executives announced their partnership in London in February, the Windows Phone team gathered at Daman’s, a watering hole near Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters. Having sealed the most important mobile deal in the company’s history, the workers toasted each other with a custom concoction they dubbed the Noble Finn:

A combination of Finlandia vodka, Chartreuse, sparkling soda, sugar and lemon juice, stirred with a reindeer antler.

The next month, Windows Phone engineering head Terry Myerson and a group of his co-workers traveled to Finland to get to know some of their Nokia compatriots better. The teams went snowshoeing (pictured right), then hit a dry sauna to warm up.

“We ran out of the sauna on fire and rolled around in the snow to survive,” Myerson said. “It was indescribably hot.”

The next day, with the courtship phase over, it was down to business, as Myerson and his team toured Nokia’s factory in Salo, Finland.

So far, executives on both sides of the partnership insist the marriage is a happy one.

“We’ve spent the last couple months working really closely together to get first products really materializing,” Nokia’s Jo Harlow, who is in charge of Smart Devices at the phone giant, said in an interview. “We all feel confident about where we are.”

Although the deal was announced in February, the paperwork wasn’t signed until April.

Well before all the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed, though, the engineering teams had already been hard at work, the companies said. Nokia had prototype hardware designs running prerelease versions of the next Windows Phone software.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has been boasting for a while that he is carrying something along those lines, and a recently leaked video shows him with an early version of the hardware.

Harlow declined to comment on that leak, but says she is increasingly confident in the first product that will arrive this year, and that the company may yet have multiple devices for sale before the end of the year. The first Nokia phones are expected to arrive this fall alongside Mango, the first major update to Windows Phone 7.

“I’m committed to one model this year,” Harlow said. “More would be great.”

For next year, though, Harlow said there will be a steady stream of releases — something that Microsoft badly needs as it tries to keep up with rivals, particularly Android devices, which are released on a constant basis.

If Microsoft was close to the latest hardware when it released the first Windows Phones last fall, it is fair to say that its models now look dated when stacked up against the latest Android models, some of which boast 3-D screens, dual-core processors, high-definition video recording and other features.

“I’m hoping that won’t be an issue next year,” Myerson said.

Harlow said her goal is that Nokia will have more frequent hardware updates, keeping the company, and by extension Windows Phone, front of mind with phone shoppers.

As the two companies settle into working with one another, they are using a variety of methods to manage their long-distance relationship.

Although most physical travel involves workers from one company visiting the other, the two companies have also found an in-between location to meet — Reykjavik, Iceland.

Why? Because it’s roughly in between Finland and the U.S., and there are direct flights from both Helsinki and Seattle. On occasion, executives have often met at Iceland’s government-owned Culture House, a spot just a couple blocks from the Höfði, the spot where Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev held a now-famous summit in 1986.

While the Americans and Soviets often struggled to find peace after a long Cold War, Harlow and Myerson say they share a good deal of common ground.

Nokia and Microsoft find themselves in a similarly tough position in the mobile space. Both companies have fallen behind Android and Apple’s iPhone in the smartphone race and have bet their future on each other as the way to recover.

There are other ties binding Myerson and Harlow: Both graduated from North Carolina’s Duke University; Myerson got his engineering degree in 1991, and Harlow, who graduated in 1984, was captain of the women’s basketball during her time in Durham. To honor the shared heritage, workers at Nokia presented both executives with custom Nokia E7 phones emblazoned with the logo of Duke’s mascot, the Blue Devil (pictured left).

While Harlow said she expects to rack up plenty of frequent-flier miles as a result of the deal, the intercontinental travel has been reduced thanks to a video conferencing technology known as Halo.

“We were planning on going to Finland, but decided to give Halo a try first, and decided we didn’t need to fly over there [as much],” said KC Lemson, who works for Myerson on the Windows Phone camera team.

Myerson echoed the importance of Halo, which he said he hadn’t used before the Nokia deal came together. The customized room lets a team in one place seem like they are separated only by a window from colleagues sitting halfway around the world.

“It’s as if we are sitting in the room with people in Finland or London,” Myerson said. “It’s like something out of ‘Star Trek.’”

Halo is used, on average, five or 10 times per week to bridge the engineering teams from Nokia and Microsoft.

But sometimes that’s not enough, of course. Nokia has transferred a top executive — Waldemar Sakalus — to Seattle to oversee the Microsoft relationship, and is spreading hardware development work across several locations, including San Diego, Calif., and Beijing, as well as two sites in Finland: Salo and Tampere.

Nokia also hired Kevin Shields, a former member of Myerson’s Windows Phone team, to oversee Nokia’s efforts to build on top of Microsoft’s operating system.

For its part, Microsoft said it has shifted its priorities to make sure that Nokia’s needs are being met first. The company has increased its focus on going global more quickly, as Nokia counts on Windows Phone to quickly fill a gap created by the rapid decline in its existing Symbian phone business.

“We had been focused on North America and Western Europe,” Myerson said of the company’s early efforts. That, he said, has now changed.

Although Microsoft is also working with its other partners, Myerson isn’t shy about saying that he is pouring more energy into his partners in Finland. After all, while HTC and Samsung build Windows Phones, they also make phones running Google’s Android software. Nokia, meanwhile, has pledged to make Windows Phone the core of its smartphone strategy.

“We are prioritizing work proportionate to Nokia’s commitment to Windows Phone, which is unlike anything we have had before,” Myerson said.

You get Supercell.

“The company was founded on the idea that there’s a gap between the social games on Facebook, like FarmVille, and the hardcore MMOs (Massively-multi-player online games) like World of Warcraft. We are trying to build a bridge between the two with a very deep and rich game experience and combine that with the power of social networks,” said Ilkka Paananen, Supercell’s CEO.

Today, Supercell is announcing that it has raised $12 million in capital and that its first game, Gunshine, is coming out of beta.

Finland-based Supercell was founded in June 2010 by a number of former Digital Chocolate employees. Paananen, who is CEO, also worked there for about a decade, most recently as President. He joined Digital Chocolate following the acquisition of a game company he founded in 2000.

Accel led the financing along with Klaas Kersting, the founder of Germany’s Gameforge and CEO of flaregames, with London Venture Partners also participating. Other previous investors of the company include Initial Capital, Cerval Investments and Lifeline Ventures.

Kevin Comolli, a Partner at Accel Partner’s London office, said the Supercell team has a huge amount of experience in the gaming sector.

“The more time we spent with them, the more I was impressed with their knowledge and insight into the next generation of online gaming,” he said, adding that the team is creative while still being grounded by business acumen and defensible technology.

The funding will be used for growth, including expanding its 20-person team. It also wants to release more games, and is exploring other platforms such as tablets and mobile phones.

Supercell’s games are free to play and supported by users paying for virtual goods from inside the games. They are accessed from the browser, meaning they don’t require any downloads. Users can sign in with their Facebook credentials in order to invite and play games with friends.

“We are not announcing how many and in what country,” Elop said this morning. “But there will be substantial reductions in employment in various locations around the world, and that too will affect Finland.”

The Finnish government is already bracing itself for the hit. ”You’re talking about 20,000 people, it’s a big number,” Minister for Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen told YLE. ”We’re talking about far and away the biggest process of structural change that Finland has ever seen in the new technology sector.”

Ugly.

That said, as I’ve noted here before, Nokia’s R&D spend is nearly three times that of its rivals and about five times that of Apple.

Oh, and don’t fret too much, Nokia staffers. Google’s hiring …

UPDATE: Reached for comment, Nokia refused to confirm Pekkarinen’s number. But it didn’t deny it either. “Stephen mentioned that there would be significant changes but the impact of the new strategy on personnel is not known yet until the planning process for implementation of the new strategy is started,” a spokesperson told me. “We have a strong track record and positive experiences of supporting employees in this kind of a situation and will aim to support the employees with different solutions. As always, when impact on employees are known we will announce them, and if job reductions are warranted we will follow all relevant legislation and practices.”

COMPLETE COVERAGE:

• Nokia’s Stephen Elop Talks to Mobilized About the Big Microsoft Deal (Video)
• Massive Layoffs Expected at Nokia
• Nokia’s Microsoft Partnership: Does the New Strategy Add Up?
• Live From the Nokia-Microsoft Press Conference: It’s a Windows Phone World After All
• More From Nokia: Forecast Gets Cloudy, Plus Expected Executive Changes
• Nokia-Microsoft: What Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop Have to Say in Their Joint Letter
• Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership With YouTube Video
• R&D Spending: Nokia Vs. Apple Shows Size Doesn’t Matter
• Not Seeing Much Return on That Massive R&D Spend, Are You, Nokia?
• Nokia: Big and Slow

Nokia has already announced the key piece of its strategy–a shift to Windows Phone for future smartphones. Now the company is set to talk about the financial implications of that and go through the rest of its strategy, which includes a mix of Symbian and even a dash of MeeGo.

The investor event is scheduled to start shortly and due to run until about 2 pm London time. Mobilized will have live coverage, providing our battery holds out. I’ll try to mention only the high points, however. Mobilized loves numbers, but it is awfully early for a whole lot of financial speak, especially for the U.S. insomniacs tuning in.

12:02 pm: Still waiting for things to get going. But if you really want something to do, we have plenty of earlier coverage, including the press conference and the YouTube video of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, as well as a chat with Elop on how he made his big decision.

12:05 pm: Okay, things are getting going as Elop takes the stage (the same one as the earlier press conference.

12:06 pm: Elop is reviewing things. Lots of talk of both challenges and gems. If you read his memo, or anything else he’s said recently, you have heard this.

Battle of devices to war of ecosystems, etc. Mobilized has this part memorized.

12:09 pm: Smartphone strategy is just one piece.

Reviewing the three alternatives that Elop considered–MeeGo, Android or some partnership with Microsoft.

As for Google, Elop says it is the case there are some advantages for that approach.

“There’s something happening there. There’s no denying that.”

However, Elop says the company was worried it would be late and be just one of many, and was not sure how it could leverage assets like its Navteq location-based services.

“Our sense was differentiation could be a pretty big challenge,” Elop says. “The risk for commoditization would increase dramatically.”

Feels profit would have eventually moved to Google, with handsets becoming a commodity.

“It felt a little bit like giving up and not enough like fighting back,” Elop says.

12:12 pm: As for Microsoft, Elop says both companies are bringing something to the table.

As expected, Elop is characterizing this as more strategic than just taking a license to Windows Phone. Talking about Nokia services like mapping, local advertising and other things that Nokia can bring to the table.

“It’s far more interesting than a simple licensing deal,” Elop says. This was the only strategy that makes it a three horse race with Google and Apple.

Elop says he is convinced that Nokia will be able to differentiate within the Windows Phone ecosystem on a sustainable basis.

12:15 pm: There were some challenges and potential disadvantages, he acknowledges.

Top among these is the fact that Windows Phone 7 is new on the market.

“It’s early,” he says. “Will it succeed?”

12:17 pm: Also, there is the issue of being locked in or a lack of control. Elop does not disclose terms but says the company has flexibility and “substantial control” over the future of the ecosystem.

“This is not your mother’s OEM deal with Microsoft,” Elop says.

12:17 pm: Elop says the deal is at the “term sheet” stage, noting that the companies have yet to sign the “definitive agreement.”

12:18 pm: Already the engineers are working through, and Elop says this deal will allow Nokia to move far faster than it has in recent years.

12:18 pm: He’s also making the cost-saving argument, saying Nokia can focus its investment, which he acknowledges hasn’t been getting the return it should.

Elop earlier acknowledged that the company expects significant cost savings from the move as well as substantial workforce reductions.

“Bottom line: Products that are more competitive,” he says.

12:22 pm: Operators are excited by a third viable option, Elop says.

“A two-horse race is not a satisfactory [situation] for operators,” Elop says.

Elop says that Microsoft-Nokia will be operator-friendly, as compared with Google and Apple.

12:24 pm: Elop talking about differentiation–a key concern of analysts and investors.

Elop talks about Windows Phone as offering differentiation form Apple and Google, but also insisting that Nokia has the assets and business terms it needs to stand out from other Windows Phones. He focuses on camera technologies and “unique relationship.”

Stresses again that this is not a standard handset maker agreement. But he also says that just because Nokia can change lots of things within Windows Phone, doesn’t mean it should.

Nokia, he says, must “resist the temptation to customize just for the sake of customization.”

12:27 pm: Now talking about Symbian. For those that missed it, Elop reiterates this is a transition strategy, but adds that the company still expects to sell 150 million more Symbian devices before that transition is complete.

12:29 pm: Strategy is more than just smartphones. He wants the company to be a leading force in connecting the next billion people to the Internet via phones in emerging markets. “The market for feature phones is pushing down the price curve and that is an opportunity for Nokia.”

Nokia will do incremental work in that area–things like Nokia Money for people that don’t have a bank account or telephone. Another, Nokia Life Tools, helps connect, say, farmers to market information.

This area is still a target for innovation, he says, but it also faces competition from Chinese-made phones based on MediaTek chipsets.

Elop says that the company must also plan for the future so that it can be disruptive down the road. “As they say in Finland, it is time to shoot ahead of the duck,” he says.

That’s where MeeGo comes in–the mobile version of Linux that until recently was seen as Nokia’s future. Nokia said that team will ship a phone later this year and then see where the future is headed.

12:35 pm: Want to point out this New York Times article that said both Google and Microsoft were offering hundreds of millions of dollars in engineering and marketing support in order to woo Nokia.

12:36 pm: Elop now talking about cost cuts, including significant job reductions.

“We are not announcing how many and in what country,” Elop says, but adds that the company wants to move quickly on that front.

He says that he has made changes to the business to ensure speed, including leadership structure changes aimed at ensuring accountability. “If things go well today, I’ll be the CEO.”

Of note, the two of the three business unit leaders are women–Mary McDowell, who will lead lower-end phones, and Jo Harlow, who will head the smartphone business.

12:40 pm: Nokia looking for a new leader for its services and developer division. The acting head is Tero Ojanpera, but he will soon be looking for other opportunities within Nokia, Elop says.

Also of note, Louise Pentland, who is head of the legal and intellectual property unit, is being elevated to the top leadership team.

“We have one of the strongest patent portfolios out there” he says, adding that he would encourage all players to take a license to said patents. (hear that, Apple?)

New leader of North American sales unit to be named in coming days.

“We are creating a different industry,” Elop says in closing his introductory remarks.

12:44 pm: Elop Brings on CFO Timo Ihamuotila to go through the numbers.

12:46 pm: Ihamuotila acknowledged Nokia didn’t meet the targets it had set out to achieve at its last financial analyst day.

“Our execution did not cut it.” he says.

12:49 pm: Ah, Now on to the good stuff. CFO talking financial impact from Microsoft deal. Says should be good over the long term.

Slide shows royalty payments to Microsoft causing lower gross margins, but says sales and marketing support from Microsoft should lower operating expenses.

“We will receive substantial go-to market support from Microsoft,” he says, without giving numbers.

12:52 pm: Ihamuotila talking now about the company’s long-term targets for devices and services period “after the transition period.”

Device sales to grow faster than the market, with operating margins of 10 percent or more–but this is only after the transition period, which the company has said could last this year and next.

Significant uncertainties in this period.

Ihamuotila shows a slide showing Symbian sales slowly giving way to Windows Phone with lower-end mobile phones remaining about half of sales.

12:57 pm: Ihamuotila shows chart of how it expects to cut R&D with the company investing less in services, more in entry-level phones and far less on MeeGo, though still some. The investment in Symbian will be replaced by a far lower investment in Windows Phone R&D. Overall, R&D should be a fraction of what it was.

1:02 pm: Over long term, Ihamuotila says that the Microsoft deal should help significantly boost the company’s Navteq navigation business.

“We think this new strategy is the best way to maximize long-term value, both to our shareholders and to other stakeholders,” Ihamuotila says.

On to Q&A for financial analysts.

1:03 pm: Question on how Nokia will keep employees motivated, something else and when to expect the first Windows Phone.

“Thanks for the one question” Elop quips, before addressing them in turn.

Elop says that the key is on focused innovation so they see the fresh opportunities (at least for the ones who don’t get cut by the large workforce reductions also promised).

He also pointed to his sharply worded memo, which he said was designed to convey the message that “Here is the truth, we’re making decisions and we’re moving forward.”

Won’t give date on first Windows Phone, but says again that the move will allow a substantially faster pace than the company was on with Symbian.

1:07 pm: Elop is asked about some of the challenges with Microsoft and Nokia each responsible for different pieces of software and services, as opposed to Google and Apple, where things are more integrated.

“We wanted to drive operational simplicity,” Elop says, adding that the companies talked about other arrangements, though not a full-on acquisition. The companies, Elop says, decided not to go with the operational complexity of a joint venture.

1:10 pm: Elop says Nokia has opportunities to differentiate from other Windows Phone devices, but adds it is in Nokia’s interest for there to be other strong handset players supporting Windows Phone.

“We’ve got to make Windows Phone successful,” he says.

Nokia’s mapping technology, he says, will benefit rivals like Samsung and HTC. “We’re willing to make those trades,” Elop says.

1:11 pm: Elop is asked why he feels comfortable with a “bet the farm” strategy on Microsoft, a company he clearly knows well.

Elop points out that it was harder to see how Microsoft would rapidly be successful without someone like Nokia.

“But this is now different,” he says, adding that this is now an ecosystem that Microsoft and Nokia are jointly helping to build.

Mapping and local advertising were not part of the ecosystem before the Nokia-Microsoft partnership.

As for impact of the transition, it’s hard to say, Elop says. Symbian is strong in some places where Apple and Google are present today.

1:14 pm: Asked whether Nokia will remain profitable during the transition. “It’s hard to say financially, and I am not going to provide any further specific guidance.”

1:17 pm: Elop won’t say when the first Windows Phone will ship, but lots and lots by next year at various price points.

“We’ll be shipping in volume in 2012,” he says.

1:20 pm: Another two-parter! 1) Why will Symbian be supported if it is transitioning away? 2) Why does Nokia think it will be able to have double-digit operating margins using someone else’s platform?

Elop: They recognize Symbian is key to Nokia being able to transition, but he agrees that consumers will have to want the Symbian phones Nokia builds. CFO also notes that less than half of Symbian phones are sold through carriers.

As for question on margins, CFO says the company has opportunities for higher margins around services and advertising.

1:23 pm: Asked about how the company is confident Windows Phone can get to lower prices, Elop says that was a key consideration, down to which chipsets will be supported, etc.

Between the two companies there was a lot of work to get a high degree of confidence.

“That was a critical evaluation,” he says.

That said, Elop agrees there is a smartphone market below Windows Phone that Nokia will manage with an evolution of today’s Series 30 and Series 40 operating systems.

1:31 pm: Elop: Some of the hardware designs that would have run MeeGo or Symbian will be repurposed for Windows Phone. Some devices may come out with similar models for both Windows Phone and Symbian.

1:32 pm: Question again on who pays whom in Microsoft-Nokia. Is there a lump payment from Microsoft?

Elop doesn’t answer and instead refers to slide that shows opportunities on both sides. Saying value going both ways. As for Microsoft’s payments, “That is a significant part of the conversation,” Elop says.

1:35 pm: Two good questions: Can Windows Phone be put on any current devices? What happens to QT development layer that Nokia bought and had sought to unify developer approach?

Elop: It’s not as simple as plugging in and downloading on to current phones, though some technologies can be repurposed.

QT continues to be the development for Symbian and lone MeeGo device. Also could have a role on low-end devices.

However, Elop says, “We are not proposing a QT on Windows Phone” approach. Adding another development environment could fork the ecosystem, which is not good for Nokia or Windows Phone, he says. Development environment for Windows Phone will be Silverlight and XNA–Microsoft’s current tools.

1:38 pm: Asked about branding, he says in some cases you will see both Microsoft and Nokia brands. Examples could include Nokia Search powered by Bing or Bing maps powered by Nokia, though he says those are examples and not final choices.

1:39 pm: Asking about tablets, questioner points out that Nokia had an early lead in tablets, but Apple “stole the show.”

“We are not announcing today a specific tablet strategy,” he reiterates, saying that Microsoft creates opportunities.

Elop notes that there are rumors of Windows Phone and Windows that could power tablets.

“We could do that,” he says. “We might do that.”

Also an opportunity for Nokia to step back into the game using its own software.

1:41 pm: Elop wrapping up.

“We have set a new course for Nokia,” he says, adding that despite what has been written, Nokia is still an incredibly powerful company, though perhaps not in North America. “Today we are diving forward” he says. “We have a strong partner in Microsoft who is incented as are we in making this successful.”

Investor guy closes by reminding there were forward-looking statements. He’s still going as people leave the room.

COMPLETE COVERAGE:

• Nokia’s Stephen Elop Talks to Mobilized About the Big Microsoft Deal (Video)
• Massive Layoffs Expected at Nokia
• Nokia’s Microsoft Partnership: Does the New Strategy Add Up?
• Live From the Nokia-Microsoft Press Conference: It’s a Windows Phone World After All
• More From Nokia: Forecast Gets Cloudy, Plus Expected Executive Changes
• Nokia-Microsoft: What Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop Have to Say in Their Joint Letter
• Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership With YouTube Video
• R&D Spending: Nokia Vs. Apple Shows Size Doesn’t Matter
• Not Seeing Much Return on That Massive R&D Spend, Are You, Nokia?
• Nokia: Big and Slow

Whether he is walking the halls of Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo, Finland, or even just buying groceries at the market, Nokia’s chief executive is constantly flooded with suggestions for how the company should regain lost ground.

Elop recalled being at dinner just over a week ago and being approached by three young people who wanted to share their suggestions.

“The three of them couldn’t quite agree on what the right strategy was, but they clearly each had an opinion,” Elop said.

For his part, Elop has deeply considered three possibilities for its high-end smartphone business–sticking with plans to develop around MeeGo (a mobile version of Linux), shifting to Android or adopting Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

Without tipping his hand, Elop spoke with Mobilized last week about the pros and cons of the various options. The interview came before releasing his big “burning platform” memo and literally as the final decision was being made.

For Elop, it came down to which approach would offer enough differentiation and yet would also be part of an ecosystem that would be large enough to attract developers, advertisers, carriers and all the other partners.

“It’s not just differentiation but sustainable differentiation,” Elop said. He also said that as big as Nokia is, it can’t afford to go it alone.

It is also critically important to Elop that the company be more competitive in the United States. Although the company ships more phones worldwide than any other company, its presence in North America is basically nonexistent. And yet, he said, the U.S. is where the pace is set for the high end of the market.

“We need to be in the United States in one way, shape or form,” Elop said. “We have to have a viable way to reopen doors.”

So where did that leave the various options?

Although MeeGo left plenty of room for differentiation, that option would also mean trying to be unique at the same time, as the company would have to convince others to build on the platform.

“For it to be a valid ecosystem, that also implies other [phone makers]–our competitors–would be attracted to it as well,” Elop said. “That’s one of the things that give it critical mass and credibility.”

Although Elop didn’t say so in our interview, his comments in this week’s memo suggest that his confidence there was low.

“We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones,” Elop said in his memo to staff. “However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.”

As for Android and Windows Phone, Elop said Nokia could offer a significant boost to either ecosystem.

“Android is growing very nicely; it has significant market share,” he said. “The combination of Android’s existing market share plus the market share that Nokia could bring to the Android ecosystem is a very large number and would signal a very substantial shift in the dynamics of the mobile operating system market.”

As for Redmond’s operating system, Elop said it is early days.

“Windows Phone is in its early formative stages in terms of getting customer traction and so forth. It’s a beautiful product and I say that as someone who is competing with it.”

However, that may not be the case much longer. While Elop was still leaving all doors open when he spoke with Mobilized a week ago, the options appear to have narrowed significantly in recent days. His memo on Tuesday appeared to rule out MeeGo as the best option, while a tweet from Google’s Vic Gundotra suggests Android is out and a tie-up with WIndows Phone is Elop’s final choice.

But, no matter what decision gets made at the high end, Elop said that the company probably needs a separate strategy at the low end of the market, where there is intense competition from Chinese phone makers building phones around low-cost chips from MediaTek.

Friday’s investor meeting will also address other aspects of the company, including its services strategy, its plans for its Navteq navigation unit and its plans to leverage its huge patent portfolio. The announcement also comes just ahead of the cell phone industry’s big trade show, Mobile World Congress, which gets going on Sunday in Barcelona.

Mobilized is here in London and will have live coverage of the meeting, which kicks off at 11 am local time. That’s 3 am PT, so set those alarm clocks early.

In fact, the Bay Area unit was one of the first parts of Nokia that CEO Stephen Elop visited when he took the job earlier this year–in part because the company’s board had already scheduled to have its meeting in the area.

Silicon Valley has slowly become an important spot for the company, despite the fact that Nokia doesn’t sell all that many smartphones in the U.S.

Earlier this month, the company’s area employees got a new home as Nokia consolidated nearly all of its Bay Area workers in new offices in Sunnyvale (see picture above). Each floor of the Finnish-style interior has self-standing structures that from the outside look like saunas, but are actually “privacy huts” used for small group meetings or just some alone time pondering the ins and outs of the cellphone business. Nokia kept its research labs in Palo Alto and Berkeley so they could stay close to the area’s top two universities.

The local staff is doing a range of different things. About 50 of Nokia’s Silicon Valley employees come from the company’s 2008 purchase of a Norweigian company called Trolltech, which makes an application platform called QT that is used to control everything from phones to trains and more.

There are also a variety of individuals and small groups working on various product and research efforts. Kari Pulli is a Nokia Fellow who focuses on camera technology. He helped develop a panorama photo feature that is part of the latest Nokia cellphones. His team also developed an HDR photography capability–a feature Pulli reminds people was added to Nokia’s phones before Apple included it in the iPhone. He said his team is currently working on techniques to improve cellphone pictures taken in low-light conditions.

Typically, such photos are either noisy or blurry, depending on what step is taken to compensate for the lack of light. But by taking two pictures–one picture that aims to be sharp, though noisy, and another that will be a bit blurry, but have low noise–he said that a better composite image can be created.

Pulli, who was born in Finland but has spent the past four years in Palo Alto, said he is not too worried that the new Nokia chief is not Finnish. “At least he’s Canadian,” Pulli said, pointing out it’s another cold, dark place that loves hockey. (Elop does love hockey.)

While some of Nokia’s workforce is building new features, others are working on making sure that the company has partnerships with all the important companies in the valley–especially the Facebooks and Twitters of the world.

As for the research projects, they vary widely, and many are only tangentially related to Nokia’s core phone-making business.

Tico Ballagas is a user experience researcher working on how to make technology a better tool for family communications. So he’s been spending a lot of time with Elmo as part of a Family Story Play project to see if distant relatives can better connect with young relatives by reading a story to them over videoconferencing gear.

Meanwhile, Jorg Brakensiek is working with a number of German carmakers to develop a framework known as Terminal Mode, which would allow all manner of smartphones to be usable within cars without users having to stare down at a screen to make use features like maps, email and more.

What many at the offices lament, though, is the fact that so few of the people in the U.S. get a chance to appreciate their work. While Nokia certainly has its challenges globally, it is all but invisible at the cutting edge of the U.S. market. that’s because none of the major carriers here sell a subsidized model of the company’s high-end phones.

What’s worse, the phones that the carriers do sell tend to be the most basic and boring of cellular designs. The company has plans to change that next year, when it hopes the introduction of Meego-based phones will finally sway U.S. carriers to offer subsidized Nokia smartphones, ideally by next summer.

Nokia says the cuts have been on the table since October, when it announced a personnel restructuring during its Q3 results. And indeed it has. From a press release issued that month:

“Altogether, the planned changes are expected to result in a reduction of up to 1,800 employees globally, as activities are planned to be discontinued and integrated. Nokia will begin applicable consultations with employee representatives about these plans.”

News of the layoffs comes on the same day that Nokia said it will miss another shipping deadline for its new E7 smartphone. That device, which will run the next iteration of the company’s Symbian OS, was expected to launch this year. Now its debut has been postponed until early 2011.

Although Andy Rubin’s keynote at D: Dive into Mobile is scheduled for just before dinner, expect to hear a lot of talk about dessert. On the menu are Froyo, Gingerbread and perhaps even a hint of Honeycomb.

Google did release a couple of tasty treats already on Monday–announcing plans for the Samsung co-developed Nexus S as well as the release of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). But I hear the cookie jar isn’t quite empty yet.

In between sugary snacks, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg will pepper Rubin on the many issues facing Android and the wireless industry. Mobilized will have live coverage of the session at this spot beginning around 6:45 pm PT.

Liveblog

6:37 pm: The crowd is still settling into their seats here at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco, the swanky home to the inaugural D: Dive Into Mobile.

6:40 pm: Lights dim. Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg take the stage. “My husband, Walt Mossberg, and I would like to welcome you to this intimate dinner,” Swisher quips.

6:42 pm: Ironically, the crowd was asked to silence their mobile devices, but Kara says they should just feel free to leave them on.

6:44 pm: It’s Rubin time (and he has brought a satchel of goodies with him).

Rubin is asked about the Nexus One and why it didn’t shake up the business model. “We bit off a little more than we can chew.” Rubin says that they were hoping for a model more like that in Europe, where people can pick a phone and then separately pick service, typically at retail stores like Carphone Warehouse. “We were trying to do that model in the U.S. and only do it online.”

6:46 pm: Kara: So have you given up on that business model?

Rubin: With Nexus S, which is the thing we announced today, we still have that notion of an unlocked phone. But we are not selling it ourselves, but through traditional channels, in this case Best Buy.

6:48 pm: Walt: How is Android doing?

Rubin: Android started as an eight-person start-up. “During that time at Google we obviously staffed up.” Now there are 172 different phone models using Android after the OS was launched two years ago with one, the T-Mobile G1.

Rubin credits the quality of the software and the open nature of it.

6:49 pm: Walt: I notice more and more they are taking on the personality of the carrier, not Google, not the handset maker. There are lots of what I would call craplets. Verizon, for example, swapped out Google for Bing. Is there a danger it is being taken over?

Rubin: That’s the nature of open. That’s actually a feature of Android.

He takes a swipe at Windows Mobile, saying that the alternative is a commoditized world where all the phones have to have a start menu in one place and all the icons have to be tiles.

6:54 pm: Kara: Do you consider yourself the Microsoft of phones in that regard?

Rubin: No. We’re probably more like the Linux of phones, and that’s a true statement.

Walt: You mean hard to get drivers for, only for geeks, no real consumer would buy it?

Rubin: No, I think we’ve already proven that wrong. Bad analogy.

6:55 pm: Discussion about all the crapware that comes on many phones.

Rubin: The consumers are voting and the consumers are voicing their opinions.

6:56 pm: Rubin has some relatively nice things to say about the iPhone.

“I think everybody is embracing the iPhone. They are pretty open.”

Rubin says that most developers actually are having a pretty easy time getting their apps approved by Apple.

6:57 pm: Kara: How do you consider Apple as a competitor?

Certainly they make great products, Rubin says–robust, solid, good user experiences. A lot of consistency across applications. More recently I see them getting involved in the other end of the spectrum–services like a bookstore, the app store.

6:59 pm: Walt: What about Apple’s massive data center? That’s another area of competition for you guys.

Rubin talks about the power of Google’s ad-based model, which allows the core advertising to fund all kinds of applications.

Walt: Do you think Apple has the DNA to do this?

Rubin: “My assumption is Apple is a company that learns from its mistakes.”

7:01 pm: Kara and Walt: Are you profitable? Is Android profitable? Does Android make any money?

Rubin: We’re making money on the advertising that’s generated through Android.

Walt: Are you profitable if it was broken out as a separate business?

Rubin: Yes. [Wow. I'm curious about the math, but maybe if you add all the searches on Android-based devices.]

There’s no way I would have ever been profitable as a start-up. I probably wouldn’t have made it as a separate company.

7:06 pm: Walt: How do you see the rest of the competition beyond Apple?

Rubin: I don’t think it’s ever going to be just two [Apple and Android]. There’s a lot of innovation and a lot of ideas out there.

Rubin says there is a fundamental advantage to Android and iPhone since they are new and designed from the ground up.

He notes even Windows Phone 7 has legacy code from the original Windows Mobile from way back when.

“You just have this package of stuff that was invented before the Internet,” Rubin says. “When the architects built that product, they didn’t have the Internet in mind.”

7:08 pm: Walt: Is there anything you do like about Windows Phone 7?

Rubin: It was a big bet. They struck upon that notion of the centerpiece of the main tiles. It’s a good 1.0 product. It does look different and it does look unique. It’s solid. I’m not the predictor of being successful.

He says if he were to give advice to Microsoft, he would suggest that it give more freedom to carriers and phone makers so the devices don’t look the same.

Kara: Have you gone to Finland to woo Nokia?

Rubin: I haven’t been to Finland.

Walt: Forget Finland, have you tried to convince Nokia?

Rubin just laughs (a-ha).

7:12 pm: Kara: The discussions with Nokia–talk about them in detail.

Rubin: The company has new leadership [referring to CEO Stephen Elop]. They are evaluating lots of alternatives. I’m open-minded and a big proponent of Android.

Rubin again declines to talk about any meetings he may have had.

7:14 pm: What about the challenge of iconic products like RIM?

Rubin: Talks about the challenge of legacy and points out Motorola had that problem when it became overly dependent on the Razr. Then, “they bet the company on Android,” he points out.

Rubin said RIM is doing the right things–acquiring assets like QNX and DataViz to build a more modern operating system.

7:16 pm: Walt points out that RIM will be here Tuesday–PlayBook tablet in hand.

7:16 pm: Back to the discussion about persuading companies to use Android.

Rubin: If it’s good–and we all believe that it’s good–everybody can use it.

“You don’t need to be a partner of Google to run Android.”

7:17 pm: Walt asks about tablets. Are they exciting to you? Are they important to you? Can they replace laptops for some people?

Rubin: I think what is going on in tablets is interesting. It’s fundamentally changing the model of computing interaction.

It is much more physical. You touch it. You feel it.

7:19 pm: What changes in the paradigm? It’s not a laptop. It’s not a phone.

Rubin points out that we used to have PDAs, but the cellphone eventually replaced it. The tablet is a sort of in-between device so the use case is less clear. You might definitely have it on the couch, but maybe not on the subway.

7:21 pm: Walt: What makes it more interesting and more immersive? There is something different there?

Rubin: If you do a good job, what you’ve done is make it a reflex. Like a car. You learn how to drive and you can drive almost any car. You don’t get distracted by things. That’s the result of many, many years of evolution. That’s true of any consumer product. They become almost like second nature for you.

7:24 pm: Kara and Walt ask about privacy.

Rubin: There is nothing in open source Android OS that sends keystrokes or what applications you use to Google.

He encourages people to look at the source code.

Walt: There are Google services that do collect certain things?

Rubin: Yes, like on other platforms. But he encourages people to read the company’s privacy policy.

7:27 pm: How do you overcome the perception that Google wants to collect more information than the others?

I think you just have to be transparent. You have open source–be inspectable. Any other interpretation is either FUD or just people who don’t understand.

7:28 pm: On to the goodie bag. Rubin pulls out a Nexus S. Says it is his personal device.

Kara: Oh good. She grabs it and pulls it close to her.

Now Rubin is showing the features, screen, etc. He’s talking about the Near Field Communications technology that is actually printed inside the back of the case. NFC allows a phone to scan specially printed tags.

Walt: Is that what sends all the information back to Google?

Rubin: Laughs. Goes back to demoing NFC and showing the Nexus S scanning a tag, which sends a URL for a video of the Nexus S to the phone, which then starts playing.

7:31 pm: Rubin talks about the applications: Buying coffee, getting coupons.

What we are hoping is third-party developers create a lot of cool apps. Devices can also use NFC to exchange contact info between two devices as well, kind of like beaming in the old Palm days.

7:32 pm: Rubin is talking abut the Nexus strategy.

To give a “Pure Google” phone. Google works with the hardware maker to take maximum advantage of Android’s features.

7:35 pm: What’s new with Gingerbread?

We added a garbage collector. Added broader voice over Internet Protocol support. Can cut, copy and paste without a trackball.

7:36 pm: Walt: What about video calling? I know there are third-party apps that do that. It seems like a natural thing that it belongs in the phone function.

Kara: FaceGoog or GoogleTime.

Rubin: There’s a whole bunch of software engineers hitting their keyboards back in Mountain View. If consumers want it, we’ll add it. [He strongly hints that it is coming, points out there already is Google video chat for PC.]

7:38 pm: Rubin reaches into his bag of tricks again. Pulls out a prototype Motorola tablet to show a forthcoming version of Google’s mobile map application.

7:38 pm: Shows the improved 3-D abilities and new panning and zooming options. What we are showing off here is some pretty cool performance.

“It will be available for cellphones in a matter of days,” Rubin says.

What allows the new presentation is that maps are no longer a series of tiles, but rather vector graphics.

7:40 pm: Vector data is smaller and more efficient, so users can load data in case they go offline. “You could load a whole state,” Rubin says.

This app runs on Android only for now, though it will work on tablets and phones.

Walt: What about PCs?

Rubin: That would be a natural extension.

7:41 pm: What version of Android is running on that tablet?

Rubin: Honeycomb [the next version of Android, due out some time next year]. There are no buttons on the Motorola tablet. He’s showing his personal email again.

7:43 pm: More on Honeycomb: We added new APIs to Honeycomb that allow an application to split its views to multiple views. On a a tablet they can be side by side, while on a phone they might be one after the other.

7:46 pm: On to Q&A.

7:46 pm: What about the Chrome OS team? What’s the delineation between the two?

Rubin: That’s a good question. Google was born on the Web. “I don’t think it would be doing its job unless it reinvested in the Web.”

But evolution of the Web had stagnated a bit, prompting Chrome. “It’s kind of slowed down a bit.”

Apps vs. Web?

There’s no need to argue. We’re doing both, Rubin says.

7:50 pm: What are the plans for the Android team to focus on the enterprise?

We did a little bit, Rubin says, but he likens it to baby steps. Support for VPN and some secure browsing. Gingerbread has some added features like remote wipe. Each release you will see more and more.

7:51 pm: App discovery. What are your plans?

Rubin: This is all evolving. The Android market is evolving as well. Gingerbread allows “related applications.” We are always adding features.

As a search company, if we can’t help you discover apps, I think we have a problem. We should be very easily able to organize a few hundred-thousand apps.

7:53 pm: Question about mobile payments; What is Andy Rubin’s vision? Groupon?

Rubin: I think there is a lot of opportunity. It is not an opportunity that is going to be seized by one company. Today Android does carrier billing integration, so you can put apps on your carrier bill. Creates an efficient micropayment option.

With Nexus S having added gyroscope capability, can see things from even within a store. Should help make, for example, better coupon apps.

7:57 pm: Android on TVs?

Rubin: That’s exactly what Google TV is. It is Android running on a set-top box. The first versions of that are running an Intel processor.

Have demonstrated the same app can run on both a three-inch screen or a flat-panel TV.

People are building all kinds of things. Refrigerators, ovens, automotive. Rubin says the nice thing about open source is that he and Google don’t have to be involved in every use. “We knew what to do to make it scale as widely as possible.”

7:58 pm: Question about carrier data plans and pricing.

Rubin: Average usage on an Android phone is 440MB a month. Rubin points out we are at a bandwidth crunch, but that it tends to be a cycle. New networks tend not to be overwhelmed by demand at first, but then the demands grow. Then new networks come along.

How should OEMs try to differentiate?

Rubin: I think HTC has done a really good job with Sense. Motorola has Blur. People are really differentiated.

Rubin says he often hears complaints about fragmentation. “Fragmentation” is the wrong word. Different phones do things differently, but that’s differentiation. Basically the apps are still compatible, Rubin says.

8:04 pm: Is Android too clunky? Will we see a sea change where Android really gets more user friendly?

Rubin: I would probably characterize Android today as an enthusiast product for early adopters–or wives of tech enthusiasts.

8:05 pm: Rubin says the company made some concessions that led to “geeking it out.” But then there are apps that offer easier customization and personalization.

8:07 pm: Walt points out places where it requires an extra step to do things like compose an email, while the iPhone does it in a single step.

Rubin: Yep. We get it. You will see the fruits of that investment in the tablets first and then in the phones. It’s going to get better. Honeycomb will be a good start

8:08 pm: Applause and they exit stage. ‘Night.

Just as the chickens always come home to roost, BoomTown always has a video ferreted away of someone who makes it to the bigs.

In this case, here is a video interview I did in April of 2009 with new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop (pictured here), just a year after he had taken over as president of Microsoft’s Business Division.

I caught Elop just after he had given a speech where he talked about how the software giant had gotten the “open” religion and was becoming “the most interoperable company in the world.”

I am still not sure about Microsoft, but one thing’s for sure: Elop has turned out to be one of the most interoperable of tech execs.

Along with his stint at Microsoft (MSFT) running that powerful franchise, he has been COO of Juniper Networks (JNPR) and CEO of Macromedia, which was acquired under his tenure by Adobe (ADBE).

His new job at Finland’s telecom giant is going to be a big one, given how far Nokia’s star has fallen in the mobile market, with the fast growth of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and the Google (GOOG) Android mobile operating system.

Elop also has five kids–including triplet 11-year-olds–so how do you say “babysitter” in Finnish?

Here’s my interview with him, as well as another video Elop ordered up while at Microsoft as part of an “Envisioning” series.

These “world of the future” videos were done by Microsoft Office Labs as part of a “Productivity Future Vision” series that sketched out a world of smartphones, touchscreens everywhere and a whole lot of innovative interacting.

It will be interesting to see if Elop can bring such a big vision to Nokia (NOK), where it is sorely needed.

Until then, enjoy Elop unplugged–as you will see, he is a very compelling dude.

(You can also watch the unembeddable–get on it, since sharing is big on phones now, Steve!–video press conference about his new job today at Nokia here.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100910/meet-nokias-new-ceo-elops-boomtown-video/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100726/iphone-4-hits-17-more-countries-friday/ http://allthingsd.com/20100726/iphone-4-hits-17-more-countries-friday/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:05:11 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=45490 The iPhone 4’s international roll-out begins in earnest this week. Come Friday, July 30, the device will go on sale in 17 more countries–Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Left off the roll-out roll call, much to the dismay of its citizens, is South Korea, where regulatory issues are reportedly slowing things down. By September, the iPhone 4 should be in stores in 87 countries, making its global roll-out Apple’s fastest ever.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100726/iphone-4-hits-17-more-countries-friday/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100720/nokia-conducting-search-for-new-ceo/ http://allthingsd.com/20100720/nokia-conducting-search-for-new-ceo/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:17:28 +0000 Joann S. Lublin and Niraj Sheth http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=27327 Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. (NOK) has launched a search for a new chief executive, people familiar with the situation said Monday.

The move comes as the current chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, struggles to find traction for the company in the market for high-end smartphones.

While Nokia continues to sell more cellphones than any other manufacturer, it has failed to keep up with advances by such rivals as Apple Inc. (AAPL) and makers of smartphones running Google Inc. (GOOG) operating software.

The Espoo, Finland, company’s failure to get back in the race has taken a toll. Its stock rose eight cents to $8.82 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange trading Monday but is off nearly 42% since April 19.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100720/nokia-conducting-search-for-new-ceo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100701/qotd-313/ http://allthingsd.com/20100701/qotd-313/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:45:04 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=44003

“We considered the role of the Internet in Finns’ everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment.”

— Suvi Linden, Finland’s communication minister, on why a broadband connection is a legal right

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100701/qotd-313/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100524/liveblogging-yahoo-nokia-annoucement/ http://allthingsd.com/20100524/liveblogging-yahoo-nokia-annoucement/#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 14:06:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=28719

As BoomTown reported last week, Yahoo planned to announce a partnership deal with Nokia this morning, centering on email and mapping.

At the announcement, the companies said Nokia will be the exclusive global provider of Yahoo’s maps and navigation services, integrating Ovi Maps across Yahoo properties and branded as “powered by Ovi.” And Yahoo will become the exclusive global provider of Nokia’s Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services branded as “Ovi Mail/Ovi Chat powered by Yahoo.”

This morning at 7 am PT, I liveblogged the event, which took place in New York, with Yahoo (YHOO) Carol Bartz and Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of the Finland-based handset maker.

As you will see, it was over in a flash.

Last week, Yahoo sent out an invite for the press conference, which read:

“Please join Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz for an exciting announcement about providing global consumers with rich online and mobile experiences, and bringing forward a new era in keeping consumers connected.”

Nokia (NOK) is the largest manufacturer of mobile devices in the world, although it has lost ground in the key new arena to innovative smartphones, which are being pushed by Google (GOOG) via its Android operating system and in recent years, by Apple (AAPL) with its iPhone.

Here we go:

7:02 am PT: Nokia reminded everyone to “keep our cellphones on.” Get it? Ha. Ha. Ha.

It was Bartz of Yahoo and Nokia’s Kallasvuo on the line. It sounded–I was on the horn from California–a bit tinny, actually.

Just as I wrote, they unveiled a partnership related to Yahoo email going on Nokia devices, but also including Nokia maps on Yahoo.

Yahoo’s map offerings have been weak for a long time now, as Google and Microsoft (MSFT) mapping efforts have grown strong.

Both Bartz and Kallasvuo said very little about anything, except how great it all is.

I would include quotes, but they were really dull!

7:11 am PT: It then opened for questions, but it seemed BoomTown was somehow cut off!

Oh well, foiled again–which is to say, not at all, since we already scooped this deal last week.

Thus, some background:

The partnership–code-named “Project Nike” after the Greek goddess of victory and not the athletic footwear giant–has been under consideration for many years between the companies without result.

Yahoo has had a range of various mobile initiatives and has had many, mostly failed, partnerships with carriers and telecom makers.

But without its own phone or mobile operating system, the Internet giant is essentially nowhere in what has become the most important digital sector today.

Nokia, which makes more mobile devices than any other company, has also struggled to keep up the lightning-fast pace of innovation and has been looking for ways to compete as the landscape shifts dramatically.

Thus, the Nokia deal is likely to be a splashy centerpiece of Wednesday’s investor day by Yahoo in Silicon Valley, which will feature Bartz and her senior management.

Here is the entire press release:

Nokia and Yahoo! to Bring Integrated Web Services to Millions of Consumers around the World

Global Strategic Alliance Enables Industry Leaders to Leverage Strengths in E-mail, Instant Messaging, Maps and Navigation across PC and Mobile Devices

NEW YORK, May 24, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE)–Today, Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Nokia (NYSE:NOK), announced a worldwide strategic alliance to extend the reach of their industry leading online services and offer people rich experiences that keep them connected to their world and the world around them.

Building on more than five years of collaboration, Nokia and Yahoo! will leverage each others’ strengths in e-mail, instant messaging and maps and navigation services, to provide consumers with access to world-class experiences on both PC and mobile devices.

As part of the alliance:

* Nokia will be the exclusive, global provider of Yahoo!’s maps and navigation services, integrating Ovi Maps across Yahoo! properties, branded as “powered by Ovi.”

* Yahoo! will become the exclusive, global provider of Nokia’s Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services branded as “Ovi Mail / Ovi Chat powered by Yahoo!”

* Nokia and Yahoo! plan to work on ID federation between their services, beginning by making it easy for people to use their Ovi user IDs across select Yahoo! properties to easily access the online content and services they need.

“Delivering great user experiences–both online and on your mobile–is what this alliance is all about,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO, Nokia. “We’re enabling millions of Yahoo! customers in key markets including North America to discover the unique capabilities that Ovi Maps brings. Similarly, Yahoo!’s online expertise will bring exciting mail and messaging enhancements to millions of Ovi Mail customers across almost every country around the world, many of whom will have their first Internet experience on their mobile.”

“What a combination,” said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo!. “We’re excited to expand the reach of our best-in-class Mail and Messenger services, bringing personalized experiences to more people across the mobile Web, particularly in emerging markets where we are seeding the next generation of Yahoo! users. At the same time, we believe Nokia’s strength and continued investment in maps and navigation will greatly enhance our existing products, enabling us to focus on areas that are core to our business.”

Together, Yahoo! and Nokia will continue to deliver compelling Internet experiences that address the core needs of consumers, developers, operators and advertisers. The companies will utilize their respective global distribution advantages and brand recognition across consumer audiences.

Select, co-branded service offerings are expected to become available from the second half of 2010, with global availability expected in 2011.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100524/liveblogging-yahoo-nokia-annoucement/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100520/exclusive-yahoo-poised-to-unveil-project-nike-partnership-deal-with-nokia-at-monday-event/ http://allthingsd.com/20100520/exclusive-yahoo-poised-to-unveil-project-nike-partnership-deal-with-nokia-at-monday-event/#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 06:38:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=28620

Today, Yahoo sent out an invite for a press conference in New York on Monday with a mysterioso tone:

It read, vaguely:

“Please join Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz for an exciting announcement about providing global consumers with rich online and mobile experiences, and bringing forward a new era in keeping consumers connected.”

That’s all it took to get BoomTown on the horn to find out what that meant.

And, according to sources, that will be a deal with Finland-based mobile phone giant Nokia (NOK) to build Yahoo (YHOO) email, search and other applications and services into a range of its devices.

While the pair had once discussed Nokia making a Yahoo-centric phone, sources said that is unlikely to be part of this deal.

Such a partnership–code-named “Project Nike” after the Greek goddess of victory and not the sneaker–has been batted around for many years between the companies without result, even as Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) have grabbed the spotlight and business in the exploding smartphone market.

Yahoo has had a range of various mobile initiatives and has had many, mostly failed, partnerships with carriers and telecom makers.

But without its own phone or mobile operating system, such as Google’s Android, the Internet giant is essentially nowhere in what has become the most important digital sector today.

Nokia, which makes more mobile devices–mostly “feature” phones, not smartphones–than any other company, has also struggled to keep up the lightning-fast pace of innovation and has been looking for ways to compete as the landscape shifts dramatically.

That’s why the long-festering deal was placed again on the fast track, especially by Bartz, who has put a lot of emphasis of late on showing Yahoo to be more relevant and cutting-edge.

Thus, the Nokia deal is likely to be a splashy centerpiece of next week’s investor day on Wednesday in Silicon Valley, which will feature Bartz and her senior management, including Americas EVP Hilary Schneider.

Schneider has played a lead role in the Nokia deal, which sources said closed two to three weeks ago.

Bartz will also be appearing at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York next week, a speaker addition that will be announced soon, where she is likely to discuss the deal.

Yahoo has been on a bit of a deal tear of late, purchasing social publishing start-up Associated Content for $90 million earlier this week.

And while the Nokia deal will likely garner a lot of attention when announced, execution will–as usual–be key in determining if this works, especially since both companies are now in a much weaker position.

“Recently, Nokia has offered devices that people don’t want and Yahoo has launched mobile services that they don’t want,” said one person familiar with the talks. “Perhaps in working together, they will find a way to finally create some value.”

Yahoo declined to comment and Nokia has not responded to an email I sent tonight.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100520/exclusive-yahoo-poised-to-unveil-project-nike-partnership-deal-with-nokia-at-monday-event/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20091216/intel-engineers-shot-out-of-cannon-recreate-intel-inside-chimes-with-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20091216/intel-engineers-shot-out-of-cannon-recreate-intel-inside-chimes-with-video/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:05:21 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=30930 Here’s a nice distraction from Intel’s mounting legal woes: A video of five helmeted Intel (INTC) engineers in Finland being shot from a cannon Gonzo-the-great style at an arrangement of massive tubular bells in a bid to bodily recreate the “Intel Inside” chimes.

Crazy Finns…

UPDATE: According to the disappearing disclaimer secreted away at the bottom of this page, the video’s not only fake (and, in retrospect I suppose that is obvious), but part of an Intel® Sponsors of Tomorrow campaign.

Yes, I am ashamed.

“All copy and videos are part of a marketing campaign for Intel® Sponsors of Tomorrow™. No Intel employees were harmed in the making of this film. All characters featured in the videos were played by actors specially trained in silly costumes and Finnish accents. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to fire anyone out of a cannon.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091216/intel-engineers-shot-out-of-cannon-recreate-intel-inside-chimes-with-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091208/google-betas-chrome-for-mac-linux/ http://allthingsd.com/20091208/google-betas-chrome-for-mac-linux/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:00:01 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=30497

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091208/google-betas-chrome-for-mac-linux/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091208/nokia-shutters-shop/ http://allthingsd.com/20091208/nokia-shutters-shop/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:36:32 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=30426 According to company lore, the design of Nokia’s flagship store on London’s Regent Street was “inspired by the forests of Finland.” And, evidently, like the forests of Finland, it was a cold, empty place. Because less than two years after opening it, Nokia (NOK) is shuttering the shop.

With poor foot traffic and anemic sales, the store, which, ironically, sits almost opposite an Apple (AAPL) store, never managed to meet profitability targets. Not really what you’d expect from a “benchmark-setting” retail outlet intended to provide “the ultimate shopping experience for Nokia’s wide portfolio of mobile devices.”

An embarrassing defeat for the troubled phone giant and one that demonstrates just how much of a struggle Nokia has competing in the smartphone market these days. Said CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood: “There was no question that the store was trying to replicate what Apple had done and build up the brand rather than shift devices. The question is why that strategy has worked for one company and not for the other.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091208/nokia-shutters-shop/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091202/walts-digg-dialogg-with-fcc-chairman-julius-genachowski/ http://allthingsd.com/20091202/walts-digg-dialogg-with-fcc-chairman-julius-genachowski/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:27:06 +0000 Walt Mossberg http://mossblog.allthingsd.com/?p=367 Walt recently sat down to interview FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, and asked him the top questions submitted via Digg.com. Check out the entire Digg Dialogg right here (you can also find it on Digg.com):

For brevity’s sake, we’ve also embedded the trailer:

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