Eloping with the Lost Ark

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Stephen Elop has been compared with Trojan Horse by the Finnish media for his fire-sale of Nokia to Microsoft..I think that has been a euphimism. The first character that comes to my mind when I think about this last Nokia CEO is Gordon Gekko - the incomparable wall-street icon of evil immortalized by Michael Douglas.. After having done a sale and leaseback of Nokia HQ ( a classic Gekko storyline, if I remember correctly), Elop was left with no other option but to sell it off . To be fair with Elop, i think he lost the plot initially itself when he linked Nokia with windows OS.. That deal was perhaps the most one-sided deal ( favouring Microsoft ) coming from a company that was still in a dominant position in mobile world..

Elop has the unique distinction of taking down Nokia share price by about 65%. When I think about Ballmer, the departing CEO of Microsoft, I can't think of any better example than the following Dilbert cartoon strip ==> http://www.cloudave.com/877/dilbert-on-mergers-acquisitions/

The scale and level of innovations in mobile phone / smart phone devices is kind of plateauing. When innovations are less, acquisitions can yield only economies of scale but not scope. Chasing share-holder value in such an industry by such corporate raiding tactics will inevitably result in an end like
Raiders of the Lost Ark

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