Nokia head Stephen Elop says Nokia has fallen behind its competitors and needs a”huge effort” to get back in the game ahead of major announcement on Friday
Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop (pictured) has compared Nokia to a man standing on a “burning platform”.
He said the company needed to take a “bold and brave step into an uncertain future” in a memo leaked to The Wall Street Journal.
Elop’s comments come ahead of an announcement from the company about its future at an analyst briefing in London on Friday.
He said there was “intense heat” coming from it’s competitors, predominantly Apple, who he said had “redefined” the smartphone.
He also called Android a “gravitational” force which had “drawn much of the industry’s innovation to its core”.
Elop said Nokia was not bringing products to the market fast enough admitting that at the end of 2011 it might only have on high-end smartphone in the market place– opening up the possibility Nokia might stick with its own platform and look to churn out more phones.
In the same memo Elop, who joined Nokia from Microsoft last year, told staff the company’s A long term and A1 short term credit rating had been put on negative credit watch by major credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s.
Elop was blunt in explaining their reasoning for doing so.
“Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.”
He concluded the memo by telling staff the new strategy would be a “huge” effort to transform Nokia and would define its future.
Nokia’s stocks have been rising steadily on the back of speculation it could adopt either the Micrsoft Phone 7 or Android platforms to boost sales.
