You need to read up on the facts before making such statements. First, Stephen Elop wasn't directly involved with much of the negotiation that happened between Microsoft and Nokia.
I could them telling Elop not to be involved for the sake of conflicts of interest; however, my guess is that Elop was involved on the Microsoft side about this kind of thing before he took the position at Nokia.
Secondly, and more importantly, Nokia was as good as dead without Microsoft and Windows Phone.
Quite incorrect. I'm familiar with quite a few people who worked for Nokia and they had a great line up coming about. The only MeeGo-based phone ever sold (the N900) did far better than any WIndows Phones, had rave reviews, etc. It did so well that when Nokia kicked it to the curb the employees who worked on it started a new company (Jolla) and are now producing it under a new name - SailFish - and still getting rave reviews, a good audience, etc. That could have been Nokia - only better since Nokia had a full pipeline (some of which Jolla picked up in terms of sales channels) that they could have really pumped it full with.
Nokia's decline started over a decade ago when they thought the future of mobile phones was disposable fashion accessories. When they finally got into smartphones late in the game they chose technological dead ends.
Again, incorrect. They did make some mistakes with how they handled Symbian. However, they had a very large market using Symbian and they had setup a complete transition for customers and partners to move from Symbian to MeeGo. Something that got completely tossed out in the move to Windows.
Praise Symbian or Meego to your heart's content but it's all irrelevant. Nokia didn't have the resources to turn either into a relevant platform.
Incorrect. Nokia had plenty of capability to turn MeeGo into a competitor to iOS and Android.
There was far too much effort and expense required to turn them into viable competitors to Android or iOS, let alone then getting third parties to support the platform with apps.
Again incorrect. They had a very viable platform with a large community of developers under Symbian that they were providing a means of transition to MeeGo for. They had all the third party apps - and one of the biggest and oldest app stores (Ovi) to do it with.
Some have suggested that Nokia should have adopted Android. There's already an overwhelming glut of Android devices on the market.
There is now. There were not that many when Elop started at Nokia. Android was well established - it was quickly becoming a dominant player - but many had not yet aligned themselves to it. It was obvious Android would be #1 or #2 alongside iOS. Either way, Android with a transition plan for their existing Symbian partners would have let them keep what they had - a very sizeable chunk of the mobile market.
Samsung is the dominant player by a huge margin with LG, HTC, Sony fighting over scraps.
FYI - Samsung picked up that position and margin in the wake of people's reaction to Elop's burning memo platform and total annihilation of their Symbian and MeegGo products in favor of a Windows Phone they had not yet finished making. If Elop had not pre-emptively killed MeeGo then they would have had kept that dominant position and Samsung would have had to fight to get there.
So what would be Nokia's strategy? Enter the fray as an also ran and hope that in the next 5+ years they somehow evolve into a relevant player?
That was certainly the position in taking on Windows phone.
Don't forget that they were already heavily bleeding cash by this point.
Again, as others pointed out they were still profitable - which means they were not bleeding cash. You only bleed cash when your books go from in the black (positive net income, revenues exceed expenses) to in the red (negative net income, expenses exceed revenues)
A partnership with Microsoft was the best possible move Nokia could have made. The deal gave them a distinctive OS that thrust them to the forefront of the tech press. I guarantee you we wouldn't be talking about Nokia today if they had gone with Android. The fact that growth has been slower in the US is mostly thanks to a crap retail industry which discourages competition and suffers from ignorance and apathy. Carriers make the situation worse because they have little interest in promoting variety over cash cows. In markets where there is more open competition and where consumers are less likely to get sucked into contracts, Nokia phones have generally done quite well.
Many CEOs are undeserving of the bonuses they receive, but Elop did the best he possibly could do save Nokia. We'll see if Microsoft's acquisition turns out to be positive, but at least for now it's an encouraging sign for competition amongst smartphones.
Welcome to your own delusion. You're enjoying it with Microsoft.
Fact is, and I do hope the appropriate authorities investigate this, that Microsoft with Ballmer and Elop probabily decided that Microsoft was going to be a devices company back before Elop landed at Nokia. Elop therefore did his job of making it cheaper for Microsoft to buy the facilities, etc they need to make that transition. And now he gets a healthy bonus for bringing the plan to fruition, and as Microsoft does with any Microsoft partner, making one less competitor to deal with.
