[Interest] Semi-OT: What could / should Elop / Nokia have done differently?

[K. Frank]

Hello List!

Most of us have been following and talking about this whole
Nokia / Microsoft thing.  A couple of recent discussions on
this list got me thinking about it again:

   [Interest] Is Nokia officially done with Qt?
   http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/2012-June/002454.html

   [Interest] Qt on Windows Phone 8
   http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/2012-June/002703.html

I would like to ask a related, but somewhat different question:
Clearly Nokia and Elop were and are facing a big business challenge.
What might they have done differently?

I'm hoping to avoid comments like this or that company is bad /
stupid / evil.  It's easy enough to say that some folks did the
wrong thing, but harder to say, okay, here's what they could have
done differently.

I think that it's arguably the case that:

   Nokia missed the iPhone revolution
   therefore faced a significant threat to their business
   therefore needed to make a dramatic (desperate?) move
   so they joined forces with Microsoft

Now I like to hate on Microsoft as much as the next guy,
and so on and so forth, but what might Elop have done
differently?  It's his job to try to save Nokia (or as
much of Nokia as he can), and not his job to try to save
Qt in particular.

It's not like Nokia could have partnered with Apple.
(Or maybe they could have.  If somebody thinks that
could have been the case, that's exactly the kind of
discussion I'm looking for.)

It's easy but not very helpful to say things like
everybody's an idiot or so-and-so is a Microsoft
tool or Nokia should have invented the iPhone before
Apple did.  I would like to approach this like a Harvard
Business School case study: Let's say you were appointed
CEO of Nokia instead of Elop back then.  What -- in the
face of the very real challenges Nokia faced -- would
you have done?  And a follow-up question:  Let's say you
are appointed to replace Elop now.  What -- given whatever
water is already under the bridge, and in the face of the
very real challenges Nokia faces now -- would you do now?


Thanks, and best regards.


K. Frank