Our chairman & interim CEO, Risto Siilasmaa, explains Nokia’s future
Risto Siilasmaa has been the chairman of Nokia’s board since his appointment in May 2012. A Finnish entrepreneur, the founder and chairman of the board of F-Secure, Risto continues to lead Nokia into its next chapter.
We talked to Risto to find out what last week’s news means for the company.
“Before and during my time on Nokia’s Board, the smartphone market has gone through fundamental changes. In this dynamic market, Nokia has done great work in creating innovative products such as the Lumia 1020. But it is clear we have also faced challenges.
“Nokia devices have connected people around the world for decades. I have myself been using a Nokia device from the time they were too big to carry around. This has been an emotional journey for all of us.
“With the recent decision, 32,000 of our 88,000 employees and little less than half of the trailing 12 month revenues move to Microsoft. This is truly a transformational change for Nokia.
“Nokia will look very different without the mobile devices and services business. But it will be a strong company, with healthy finances and three strong businesses – NSN, HERE, and Advanced Technologies – each a leader in technology and innovation.
“So, as we write this next chapter for Nokia, our starting point is a strong one. We will continue to be a global force.”
Network business
“There are three key areas to our reinvention of Nokia.
“The first element of Nokia Reinvented is NSN, our networks business, supplying technology and infrastructure to operators worldwide. We will continue to manage NSN as a strong, independent unit.
“NSN is the mobile broadband specialist and especially strong in LTE. With our strong and focused investment in R&D, we will continue to launch uniquely innovative solutions such as the Liquid Applications that was announced in Barcelona earlier this year.”
Location anywhere
“HERE is another key business for Nokia. HERE is making solid progress to becoming the leading location cloud business through an offering across connected devices, enterprise solutions and car.
“We believe that location technologies and services will be pivotal in the next phase of the mobile Internet, where more and more devices are connected to the cloud. We also believe that location will become an essential building block across all industries.
“HERE is already available in 4 out of 5 cars with in-dash navigation and we have mapped millions of kilometers of road across the world. And we’re committed to continue to extend our coverage.
“We have also recently launched exciting new technology to connect the car to the cloud in order to bring previously unseen benefits to both the driver and car manufacturer.”
Advanced technologies
“Finally, we will form a new business, Advanced Technologies, building on most of the activities from the current CTO unit and the IP business team, while exploring new, strategically important topics.
“Our CTO organization has a strong track record in innovations that continue to shape the industry. In recent years, these have included the leading technologies for video and audio encoding, including H.264 and HD voice; low-power connectivity technologies such as Bluetooth LE (low energy) and imaging technologies which are now powering augmented reality apps such as HERE Live Sight.
“Nokia’s investment in research and development also helped us build what we believe is the largest and strongest intellectual property portfolio in our industry, with around 10,000 carefully selected patent families. We’ve already established a successful patent and technology licensing operation, which we will expand to continue to drive revenue and profit for Nokia through the new Advanced Technologies business.”
New beginnings
“During the coming months, my main focus will be on clarifying our strategy, designing the right corporate structure to achieve the targets we set, and together with my colleagues on the Nokia board, we will focus on identifying the right person who will be the CEO of Nokia going forward. “
“I have been amazed and deeply moved by the feedback from many of our employees. They are set to start the work immediately, surprise the world with our innovation and remind people what Nokia truly stands for.”
“I believe this is the beginning of the next 150 years of Nokia’s story.”
image credit: kevin dooley