Ousted from Nokia in September of 2010, after disastrously underestimating the threat posed by Apple’s iPhone and smartphones running Google’s Android OS, Kallasvuo hasn’t been heard from much the past three years. Presiding over a 70 percent decline in the market value of what was once the world’s largest maker of mobile phones is a tough thing to come back from. But now he’s popped back up on the radar with a new gig in a sector that’s commanding a lot of attention these days: Set-top boxes and Internet-connected TVs.

Swedish TV software company Zenterio has tapped Kallasvuo as chairman of the board. That seems an odd appointment on the face of it. The market Zenterio is after doesn’t exactly fall under Kallasvuo’s area of expertise (cough, Symbian). But then Zenterio began life as Nokia’s Home Communication division, a business the company divested in 2002. So there’s some history between Kallasvuo and the company he now chairs.

Beyond that? Who knows. Certainly Kallasvuo seems to have some big ideas for Zenterio and its Linux-based OS. “The operating system market for set-top boxes and [Internet protocol television] is extremely fragmented,” Kallasvuo told Reuters. “Each set-box manufacturer has its own software. What Zenterio can offer is a hardware-independent solution for pay-TV operators. … We are talking to many, many top-tier operators globally.”

One would think so. The set-top-box market is vast. By some estimates, worldwide shipments of the devices hit 250 million in 2012. So there’s a big opportunity here, and the market is open and ripe for disruption. But Zenterio is hardly the only player eyeing it. Google is still toiling away on its Google TV platform, which is similarly hardware-independent. And then there’s Apple, which is either working on a full-fledged Internet-connected TV, a set-top box, or something entirely different, depending on whom you talk to. Kallasvuo, of course, has experience battling them both, albeit unsuccessfully. Perhaps he’ll do better this time.

Mr. Elop, recruited from Microsoft Corp. to revive the ailing handset maker’s fortunes, received a payment of €2.3 million ($3.17 million) in October and is entitled to a payment of $3 million in October 2011, according to a Nokia filing at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

He also received €509,744 to reimburse fees paid to Microsoft and €312,203 in legal expenses.
Mr. Elop’s annual base salary is €1.05 million before bonuses, below the €1.23 million base salary of his predecessor, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

Rea the rest of this post on the original site

Should Stephen Elop, Nokia’s new CEO, continue executing the strategy established by his ousted predecessor, strengthening it by improving execution and operating costs? Or should he map out an entirely new strategy, perhaps one based on a third-party operating system. Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley favors the latter, suggesting Nokia make the jump to Android or Windows Phone 7. And interestingly, he feels WP7 is the better option of the two.

Why?

Well, for one thing, Elop is a Microsoft veteran. He seems to have left the company on good terms and presumably still has close ties to it. For another, Microsoft and Nokia are a better cultural fit than Google and Nokia. And finally, the two companies need each other to succeed in the mobile market long term.

“We believe Microsoft needs more support from a leading device OEM to compete with Android longer term and Nokia likely needs to adopt a new high-end smartphone strategy to stem smartphone share losses,” Walkley says. “Further, Microsoft could create a differentiated tablet strategy with stronger enterprise support and Nokia could clearly benefit with a tablet and smartphone combined strategy that is offered by competitors….We believe the combination of Microsoft’s marketing muscle and software expertise with WP7 and Nokia’s global brand, distribution and scale advantages could drive solid sales of WP7-based devices worldwide. Additionally, it would provide Nokia a much-needed re-entry into the North American market, where its market share has stagnated at low-single-digit levels for multiple years.”

In other words, a Nokia-Microsoft alliance could bolster the WP7 ecosystem to the point where WP7 becomes a third dominant mobile OS alongside Android and iOS.

That would suit Microsoft–which has been struggling with mobile for years–just fine. But what about Nokia, which still makes quite a bit of money selling feature phones in the BRIC countries?

Turns out “personal reasons” was actually a euphemism for “I’m joining Palm.”

Sources close to the company tell me that Jaaksi has been hired on as senior vice president of webOS at Hewlett-Packard’s Palm division. He’s to start in November, after relocating to the Bay Area, and when he does, he’ll lead Palm’s webOS engineering team.

Jaaksi is already a big fan, as evidenced by this observation on his blog back in May: “I used to use a Palm Pre a lot. What a great device. What an astounding software. I was so disappointed to see it not getting the traction it deserves. I really hope that now that it has found a new home @ HP it will rise again! And by the way, I have an extra sweet spot for Pre. It shares a lot of stuff with Maemo and N900.”

And Jaaksi isn’t Palm’s only new high-profile hire. Victoria Coleman, who recently headed up Samsung’s R&D Center in San Jose, is joining the company as well. Her task: To oversee platform and application development for next-generation versions of webOS.

Palm has also managed to pull some talent from within HP. Steven McArthur, the SVP of the company’s consumer applications business, is now heading up product marketing for Palm. Joining him are Enrique Lores, SVP of PSG worldwide sales, who is leading the Palm sales organization. Steve Manser, SVP of product development, oversees product management.

Quite the lineup, and one that bodes well for Palm’s webOS devices and its future at HP.

Jaaksi, who says he’s stepping down for personal reasons, will leave Nokia (NOK) in a couple of weeks. His departure follows those of Anssi Vanjoki, head of Nokia Mobile Solutions, and former CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

How will this affect the launch of the first Nokia devices powered by MeeGo, the next-generation mobile OS the company is developing in partnership with Intel (INTC)? Not at all, says Nokia, which tells Engadget that an “update on MeeGo” will be announced before next year. Of course, as the gadget site aptly notes, there’s a hell of a lot of wiggle room in that phrase, and there are rumors circulating that the latest MeeGo build leaves a lot to be desired.

An odd way to kick off Nokia World, the event at which the company traditionally touts its latest handsets and a particularly important one this year, given the company’s struggle for relevance in the smartphone market and the deterioration of its market share in regions where it once had a stranglehold.

These high-level management changes will almost certainly overshadow the company’s hardware announcements, but perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps the real message of this year’s Nokia World is that Nokia is serious enough about its transformation that it’s willing to make some hard choices. As Niklas Savander, EVP of the company’s Markets unit said today, “We’re not going to apologise for the fact that we’re not Apple (AAPL) or Google (GOOG) or anybody else – we’re Nokia and we’re unique. Nokia’s going through a tough, challenging transition and we have a lot more work to do. But we have laid the foundation for success. I recognise that we haven’t been as competitive as we want to be in smartphones. Well, that’s about to change. Today, we shift in to high gear in Nokia’s fightback in smartphone leadership. Today is about the here and now, about three words. Nokia is back.”

The move was a long time coming. Question is, did it come at the right time? And while it’s obviously far too early to say definitively, it’s clear that it comes at an awkward one. Arguably, the only “right time” for a shift like this was years ago–before Nokia (NOK) was caught off guard by Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and the new breed of smartphone it heralded.

That said, making the change on the eve of Nokia World, the company’s annual showcase event, seems an unfortunate choice, as does making it ahead of a major refresh of the company’s smartphone portfolio.

While Elop’s appointment will certainly put an end to speculation about OPK’s tenure at the company, it’s also going to put Nokia’s executive shake-up top of mind at a time when attention is best focused on new products. Worse, it puts the company in the precarious position of swapping out CEOs ahead of a major product launch, the N8–Nokia’s new marquee smartphone, its first to use the Symbian 3 operating system and the device with which the company has said it will reclaim its lost glory.

In other words, Elop is not starting off with a clean slate, but a full one, overflowing with a new software platform and a new smartphone portfolio. He’s not going to be recasting Nokia’s smartphone strategy–he’s going to be executing the one established by his ousted predecessor. And he’s going to be doing it with little hardware design and wireless carrier experience, two things crucial to that strategy’s success.

That seems a daunting challenge. That said, Elop did run Microsoft’s (MSFT) $19 billion Business Division, so perhaps his operational chops make up for those deficits.

The timing of the move may be debatable, but the need for it was not.

By the way, here is the email that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent out to employees about Elop’s departure:

Microsoft Business Division Transition

Sept. 9, 2010

I am writing to let you know that Stephen Elop has been offered and has accepted the job as CEO of Nokia and will be leaving Microsoft, effective immediately. Stephen leaves in place a strong business and technical leadership team, including Chris Capossela, Kurt DelBene, Amy Hood and Kirill Tatarinov, all of whom will report to me for the interim.

The MBD business continues to grow and thrive, with 15 percent growth in the last quarter. It has been good to see the great response to Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, the growth of our Dynamics business and the way we have been successful in extending all our MBD products and services to the cloud. I appreciate the way that Stephen has been a good steward of the brand and business in his time here, and look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role at Nokia.

Please join me in wishing Stephen well.

Steve

These days Nokia’s (NOK) struggles in the top end of the market are almost clichéd, and its failure to develop a compelling offering weigh on it more heavily with iPhone 4 and various Android handsets winning more and more consumer mindshare. That said, Kallasvuo insists Nokia will soon recapture its lost glory. “We are approaching the end of this painful product transition at the high end of our product portfolio,” he said during the company’s last earnings call. “[Our new smartphones] will mark the beginning of our renewal. As we go forward I believe we will regain high-end leadership in our industry.”

Clearly, Nokia’s struggles in the top end of the market continue, and its failure to develop a compelling offering there are weighing on it more heavily than ever in these days following the debut of iPhone 4 and various Droids. That said, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo insists Nokia (NOK) has reasons to be optimistic, with the new Nokia N8 scheduled to debut later this the year. “We are approaching the end of this painful product transition at the high end of our product portfolio,” he said during a conference call with analysts today. “The N8 will mark the beginning of our renewal. As we go forward I believe we will regain high-end leadership in our industry.”

But really, what did you expect him to say? Given recent media reports claiming Nokia’s board has begun searching for his successor, this may well be Kallasvuo’s last chance to, in his words, “kick-start Nokia’s fightback” against Android and the iPhone.

Indeed, in an interview with CNBC today, Kallasvuo called for an end to rumors about his tenuous future at the company. “There has been a lot of speculation on my position, on myself, during the last couple of weeks,” he said. “That speculation is detrimental. It’s not good for Nokia and must be brought to an end one way or another.”

And at this point, which way it will be brought to an end is an open question. Said Kallasvuo, “I’m not in a position here and now to really shed any more light on the topic. I really must just concentrate now on the task at hand.”

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 »

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.

And so this morning, the handset maker announced another sweeping overhaul of its management structure, its second reorganization in less than a year. This time around, Nokia (NOK) is dividing its Devices and Services business into three units.

Mobile Solutions (smartphones and services), will be headed by Anssi Vanjoki; Mobile Phones (low-end handsets) by Mary McDowell and Markets (sales, marketing and distribution) by Niklas Savander. Solutions will handle smartphones and services; Mobile will oversee Nokia’s low-end phones and Markets will take care of sales and marketing, supply chains and sourcing. (Click on chart below to expand.)

Another significant rejiggering of Nokia’s management. Interestingly, there appears to be no place in it for former Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson, who was tapped to run the company’s mobile phone business as part of its last restructuring seven months ago. Remember, it was Simonson who heralded Nokia’s recovery in smartphones.

“Yes, we have lost ground in the smartphone space over the past 18 months, but the decline has stopped and stablised in the second and third quarters of 2009,” he told India’s Economic Times in January.

“The New Year will see [our] recovery in smartphones….By 2011, our efforts will start producing results, as we will be at par with Apple and RIM in smartphones,” Simonson added. “Not only [will] we draw level with them, we will also win the war because, in addition to e-mail, we will be adding content, chat, music, entertainment and several other features, which will soon become very critical for success of any company in this space.”

Pulling that off evidently wasn’t quite so easy as Simonson or Nokia expected.

In any event, Nokia believes it has things dialed in now. “In addition to extending our leadership in mobile phones, we are decisively moving to respond faster to growth opportunities we expect in smartphones and mobile computers,” CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in a statement. “Nokia’s new organisational structure is designed to speed up execution and accelerate innovation.”

In theory. But in practice? Well, we’ll have to see how things play out. The company’s last organizational shakeup was intended to do exactly the same thing, and as far as I can tell, didn’t substantially improve Nokia’s position in anything.

Reporting first-quarter earnings this morning, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones fell short of expectations for both sales and profit. Though sales rose for the first time since the second quarter of 2008, they did not meet consensus estimates. Where analysts were looking for 9.69 billion euros, Nokia (NOK) delivered just 9.52 billion. And at 14 cents a share, adjusted earnings missed a consensus forecast for earnings of 15 cents.

There was some good news amid the bad, though. Nokia sold 21.5 million smartphones during the quarter, up 57 percent. That’s quite an improvement over last quarter, though as growth rates go, it pales compared with the 131 percent jump in iPhone shipments Apple (AAPL) reported earlier this week.

In any event, Nokia’s struggle to return to its former glory in the highly competitive mobile market is far from over. Said CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo: “We continue to face tough competition with respect to the high end of our mobile device portfolio, as well as challenging market conditions on the infrastructure side.”

That’s not going to change any time soon, particularly in the smartphone market, where Nokia lags far behind its rivals. As Gartner (IT) analyst Carolina Milanesi notes, “Everyone else has caught up and Nokia has been left behind.”

And while the company is doing its damnedest to catch up, things just don’t seem to be working out. Indeed, this morning, Nokia said it is delaying the launch of its first Symbian 3 devices from the second till the third quarter.

“We will not ship these products before the quality meets the end user’s needs and demands,” Kallasvuo said during the company’s earnings call. “It’s a painful thing to delay something a bit. I am aware of that. But at the same time meeting the quality requirements is the right thing to do.”

Disappointing news given that these are the handsets intended as rivals to Apple’s iPhone and to some of HTC’s Android devices. Pushing their launch date out is going to put the company under enormous pressure toward the end of the year as we head into the winter holidays.

Said Milanesi: “Nokia catching up becomes less hopeful because of these delays. Competition will only get tougher in the second half with the run up to Christmas. We have to see what kind of rabbit they can pull out of the hat.”

Wall Street’s reaction to today’s news? A nasty beating. As of this writing, Nokia shares are trading down nearly 13 percent at $12.86.

Remarkably, Nokia (NOK), which saw its share of the smartphone market decline to 35 percent from 41 percent last quarter, managed to push it back up to 40 percent in Q4. Quite a surprise considering that many expected the company’s smartphone share to fall even lower this quarter.

Anyway, on to the numbers:

Fourth-quarter net income was 948 million euros ($1.33 billion), or 26 eurocents a share. That’s up from 576 million euros, or 15 eurocents a share earned in the year-earlier period, and above consensus estimates, which called for earnings of 19 eurocents a share. Sales during the quarter fell 5.3 percent to 12 billion euros. But the number of handsets shipped rose 12 percent to 126.9 million units.

“In the fourth quarter the demand environment for handsets ended up being better than we anticipated and we took advantage of this upside,” Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said during a conference call.

Alas, the Foursquare conference, hosted by the Quadrangle PE fund, is an invitation-only affair. And the event, which kicks off tomorrow, is closed to the press except for reporters onstage to interview the stars. And those conversations don’t get released to the public.

That’s a particular bummer this time. Because the Quadrangle guys–who have had a rough year–had the foresight to get a lineup that includes GE (GE) CEO Jeff Immelt, who appears to be in the final stages of selling NBC Universal to Comcast (CMCSA) CEO Brian Roberts, who will also be onstage. Sure would be nice to hear what they say.

Another panel that piques my interest, if only because of the title: “Are Popularity and Profitability Correlated?” It features Twitter’s Stone, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley. And would-be moguls are represented by a start-up pitch panel that includes Dennis Crowley of Foursquare, the superbuzzy mobile service whose name has nothing to do with Quadrangle’s conference.

So once again, here’s the complete list of those you won’t be hearing from this week as they gather at the Plaza in Manhattan. Unless, perhaps, one of my more ambitious colleagues sneaks in–I’m thinking of you, Bobby MacMillan–and gets us a first-hand account.

2009 SPEAKERS
EMILIO AZCÁRRAGA President, Board of Directors and CEO, Grupo Televisa
DENNIS CROWLEY Co-Founder, foursquare
BARRY DILLER Chairman and CEO, IAC; Chairman, Expedia, Inc. and Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc.
BRIAN DUNN CEO, Best Buy
CHARLES FORMAN Founder, OMGPOP
REED HASTINGS Founder, Chairman and CEO, Netflix
REID HOFFMAN Executive Chairman and Founder, LinkedIn Corporation
CHAD HURLEY CEO and Co-Founder, YouTube
JEFF IMMELT Chairman and CEO, GE
PAUL JACOBS Chairman and CEO, Qualcomm Incorporated
OLLI-PEKKA KALLASVUO President and CEO, Nokia
JASON KILAR CEO, Hulu
LESLIE MOONVES President and CEO, CBS Corporation
ANNE MULCAHY Chairman, Xerox Corporation
JAMES MURDOCH Chairman and Chief Executive, Europe & Asia, News Corporation
BRIAN PHILLIPS CEO and Co-Founder, Thread
DAN PORTER CEO, OMGPOP
BRIAN ROBERTS Chairman and CEO, Comcast Corporation
PAUL SAGAN President and CEO, Akamai
ERIC SCHMIDT Chairman and CEO, Google
IVAN SEIDENBERG Chairman and CEO, Verizon Communications
BIZ STONE Co-Founder, Twitter
HOWARD STRINGER Chairman, CEO and President, Sony Corporation
BEN VERWAAYEN CEO, Alcatel-Lucent
DAVID ZASLAV President and CEO, Discovery Communications

MODERATORS
MARC ANDREESSEN General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
KEN AULETTA Author and Writer, “Annals of Communications”, The New Yorker
MARIA BARTIROMO Anchor, Closing Bell; Host & Managing Editor, Wall Street Journal Report, CNBC
JAMES CITRIN Co-Leader, Board & CEO Practice, North America, Spencer Stuart
DAVID FABER Anchor, Reporter, CNBC
MICHAEL HUBER Co-President and Managing Principal, Quadrangle Group
BECKY QUICK Co-Anchor, Squawk Box, CNBC
GEOFFREY SANDS Director & Leader, Global Media, Entertainment & Information Practice, McKinsey & Co.
JOSHUA L. STEINER Co-President and Managing Principal, Quadrangle Group
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS Anchor, This Week; Chief Washington Correspondent, ABC News

Dragging the company down: A 908 million euro goodwill write-off in the Nokia Siemens Networks venture it co-owns with Siemens (SI). Revenue was 9.8 billion euros, or about $14.6 billion, which was down about 20 percent compared to last year. Worse, smart-phone market share declined to 35 percent from 41 percent in the previous quarter.

Six points gone in three months? That’s a brutal loss and one that demonstrates just how much pressure the company is seeing from Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM), among others.

“Nokia is launching plenty of new high-end smartphone models, such as the N900 and N97 mini,” Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston told Reuters. “But as yet there is no iPhone killer to drive a major revival in its smartphone volumes. Nokia is still struggling in the U.S. smartphone market, and with competition intensifying in China as well, Nokia’s battles can only get tougher in 2010.”

Still, Nokia (NOK) did have some good news to report. It expects mobile device volumes to increase in the fourth quarter of 2009 and it sees the global handset market shrinking less this year than analysts had feared–seven percent instead of 10 percent.

“It is encouraging to see some signs of recovery in our markets,” Kallasvuo said during a conference call. “But let’s be clear, uncertainty in end-consumer demand remains.”

“…the PC and the mobile will continue to come closer and merge,” Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said at a press conference in New Dehli. “A lot of opportunity can be seen in this converged area. We at Nokia is actively looking at this converged market….We are looking at the netbook market to see what kind of opportunity is there.”

Likely a decent one for a cellphone maker like Nokia looking to diversify a bit from its core business. The company’s Symbian smartphone platform could likely be optimized for the task were Nokia to bring some of its $6 billion R&D budget to bear on it. The OS already has a Microsoft-compatible office suite in MobiSystems OfficeSuite 4, so Nokia’s ahead of the game there. Question is: Might the company’s efforts be better directed toward developing a credible competitor to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone?

Nokia (NOK) shipped 103.2 million units during the quarter, down about 15 percent year-over-year. Worse, increased competition in the smart-phone market from the likes of Apple (AAPL) and RIM (RIMM) forced the company to reduce forecasts for market share and profitability. Nokia had expected to increase market share in the second half of the year, but now it expects it to remain flat. And the company expects handset shipments for 2009 to be around 10 percent lower than in 2008.

“Nokia put in a solid performance in what was another tough quarter,” Kallasvuo said. “Competition remains intense, but demand in the overall mobile device market appears to be bottoming out.” Good news, because its search for the bottom has been having a calamitous effect on Nokia. Shares in the company are down more than 12 percent at $13.70 in early trading.

As President and CEO of Nokia, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo runs the world’s largest mobile phone maker (with roughly 36 percent share) and one of the few top tech companies in Europe.

It’s a hard-won and enviable position, but a tough one to maintain, especially in a souring economy. And that is even more of an issue for Nokia (NOK) now, with new rivals like Apple (AAPL) emerging in the sector the company has long dominated.

Both Apple and Research in Motion (RIMM) gained market share at the company’s expense in the first quarter, with innovative touchscreens and apps, features that Nokia has been late to the smartphone party with.

Kallasvuo talks about all this and more in an interview with Walt Mossberg at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.

Here’s the video of the full D7 session:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090624/nokia-president-and-ceo-olli-pekka-kallasvuo-the-full-d7-session/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090624/nokia-president-and-ceo-olli-pekka-kallasvuo-the-full-d7-session-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20090624/nokia-president-and-ceo-olli-pekka-kallasvuo-the-full-d7-session-2/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:15:41 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14846

As President and CEO of Nokia, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo runs the world’s largest mobile phone maker (with roughly 36 percent share) and one of the few top tech companies in Europe.

It’s a hard-won and enviable position, but a tough one to maintain, especially in a souring economy. And that is even more of an issue for Nokia (NOK) now, with new rivals like Apple (AAPL) emerging in the sector the company has long dominated.

Both Apple and Research in Motion (RIMM) gained market share at the company’s expense in the first quarter, with innovative touchscreens and apps, features that Nokia has been late to the smartphone party with.

Kallasvuo talks about all this and more in an interview with Walt Mossberg at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.

Here’s the video of the full D7 session:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090624/nokia-president-and-ceo-olli-pekka-kallasvuo-the-full-d7-session-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-video-olli-pekka-kallasvuo-and-the-nokia-n97/ http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-video-olli-pekka-kallasvuo-and-the-nokia-n97/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 22:15:47 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=1371 Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo talks with Walt Mossberg about the importance of pragmatism in the cellphone market, and previews the latest Nokia (NOK) N97 phone. It doesn’t have a U.S. carrier and it’ll cost $699 unlocked, but hey–it looks pretty cool.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-video-olli-pekka-kallasvuo-and-the-nokia-n97/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090527/olli-pekka-kallasvuo/ http://allthingsd.com/20090527/olli-pekka-kallasvuo/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 22:10:19 +0000 John Paczkowski http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=234

With a roughly 36 percent market share, Nokia is the world’s largest mobile phone maker. A hard won and enviable position, but a tough one to maintain, especially in a souring economy. More so now with innovative new rivals like Apple emerging in the sector the company has long dominated. But that’s the situation that CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo faces today.

The deteriorating mobile phone market is weighing heavily on Nokia (NOK). In January, the company warned that world-wide sales in ’09 are likely to fall 10 percent year-to-year. As Kallasvuo put it at the time, “the macro environment is challenging and, we believe, will remain so in 2009.” More challenging for Nokia, than for rivals Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM), which both gained market share at the company’s expense in the first quarter. Driving their success: Touchscreen phones and app stores, features Nokia has been late and lame to market with. Consider the embarrassing launch this past Monday of its Ovi Store, the company’s challenge to Apple’s App store. Clearly, lots to talk about this session….

Highlights Video

Live Blog

• Shifting gears quickly from the Plastic Logic demo, Walt welcomes Kallasvuo to the stage. First question: You have what share of the world mobile phone market? 35 to 40 percent, replies Kallasvuo.
• Walt: And the devices all these people are using range from low-end devices to devices like the ones Mike Lazaridis was just talking about? Kallasvuo agrees, and notes that he prefers to call the higher-end devices to which Walt refers “mini-computers.”
• Walt: Who are your main rivals? “Three years ago,” says Kallasvuo, “I would not have hesitated to say Motorola.” Obviously, he won’t be saying Motorola (MOT) today. Kallasvuo rattles off a list that includes Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL) and Samsung. “You can compete with some of them some of the time, but not all of the time. So you must partner,” says Kallasvuo, adding that Nokia (NOK) works with Microsoft on email.
• “The cellphone industry is becoming a consumercentric solutions business,” says Kallasvuo. “We are roadmapping now on the basis of solutions and not devices….We are going through a major transformation here and all our operations are being aligned with this change.” A lot of learning must be done there, but there’s also lots of opportunity.
• Talking now about the Symbian OS. Why did Nokia open-source it? Kallasvuo: “We bought it to give it away. And it made Symbian better and faster.” Symbian, says Kallasvuo, is the only mobile OS today that is both open and mature. That’s an advantage when you’re competing against the likes of Apple and Google. If that’s true, asks Walt, why do you have these other operating systems? Kallasvuo admits that Nokia has three mobile OS’s, but says this is necessary to address different sections of the market.”
• Walt: Did you bring a new phone for us to look at? Kallasvuo says yes. He’s brought Nokia’s N97 handheld computer. Walt asks about price and carrier. Kallasvuo: It will initially come to the open channel and will be priced at $699.
• Nokia’s Davis Fields joins Walt and Kallasvuo onstage to demo the device. This is the best handheld Nokia’s ever made, he says. He runs through the specs, which are all impressive: Carl Zeiss lens, etc. Boasts a touchscreen. He moves quickly to the OS, which uses GPS to make the devices runtime applications location-aware. Example: The device’s weather app reveals the current weather in San Diego, the location of this conference. Apps will be available through the OVi store. Core photo application supports MMS and has built-in Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr support. Quick demo of the device’s music features. MP3 player, FM radio, music store, stereo speaker support, built-in FM transmitter, Bluetooth streaming. Everything but the kitchen sink in this thing apparently. Text-to-speech AND speech-to-text available in the email application. 3-D maps and turn-by-turn mapping (thanks to Nokia’s ownership of NavTec).
• Moving on now to the Ovi store, Nokia’s location-aware app store, which launched somewhat problematically earlier this week. Walt asks about those problems and Kallasvuo quickly jumps in to note that they’ve been resolved. “High traffic,” he says. Going over the device’s form factor now, Fields pops open its keyboard. Pulls up AllThingsD on its browser, noting that it browses “the real Internet.” Unlike Safari on the iPhone, it supports Flash. What about video? (This shouted out from the audience.) You can record video and submit it to YouTube, you can download movies from Amazon (AMZN) Unbox. Video chat also supported. Battery life (also shouted from audience). “This holds up very well for all the things you can do with it. It holds up until the end of the day.”
• Walt’s first review of the N97: “That was pretty cool.” Kallasvuo: “I think so too.”
• OK, says Walt. you’ve got this device that looks competitive with the iPhone, but you don’t have a carrier partner in the U.S. What is your problem here? Kallasvuo: “I’ve been working on this one for a long time. A few years ago we began making devices specific to this market.” Nokia’s hope is that these efforts will be recognized and their products and services will be embraced by the local carriers. Kallasvuo recalls AT&T (T) CEO Randall Stephenson’s remark earlier this morning about network quality and device being top consumer concerns. He believes Nokia is in prime position to cater to the latter.
• But Randall and AT&T aren’t carrying this phone. Kallasvuo says the issue here is simple: The device isn’t CDMA. “But I’m working on Randall.”
• On to the Q&A: Could you talk more about your strategy around location? Kallasvuo says location is very important. The company is working to develop more location-based solutions for people. “The phone knows where you are. It might know where you’re going or what you’re going to do.” He says Nokia is looking forward to social location.
• How do you see WiFi and 3G coming together to resolve any potential network bottlenecks in the future? Is there a smooth way to offload traffic from 3G to WiFi? Kallasvuo says the technology is there, but ultimately this will be a carrier solution.
• The final question references the Eve Ensler session and the issue of rape-free phones. Unlike RIM’s Lazaridis, who preceded him, Kallasvuo seems quite knowledgeable about the issue. “We’ve been working on this issue in the Congo since 2001….We are doing everything we can to ensure that we do not use the coltan from the mines in the Congo.” He says Nokia has turned to other suppliers in Australia.
• End of Q&A

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as we were able. It was not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

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