LONDON, England – That was OPK’s description of the N97 when he was interviewed by the TimesOnline’s Lilly Peel, which was published today. The interview appeared in the Business section’s Movers & Shakers column, with the punchy title “Far from Silicon Valley comes challenge to Google and Microsoft”. It’s a nice piece, focussing a lot on Nokia’s move to being more like an Internet business. But it does reveal a few titbits about OPK which were news to me, and perhaps, news to you.
When OPK was brought into Nokia originally, he was part of the team which transformed the company from a primarily rubber-based business to a technology business. I was aware that OPK was around then, but perhaps not aware that he was so instrumental to the move.
Tackling the change today then, where Nokia moves emphasis to services and software, away from hardware, there’s probably nobody better placed to lead and drive that move.
The article does question the sense of the move in the current economic climate – questioning whether people will be willing to pay for additional services, and whether the services section of the business will be delivering the $2 billion of revenue by 2011. I’m not placed to answer that, but it is an interesting question I think. In the grand scheme of Nokia’s annual revenues it isn’t a huge amount, but even so it’s nothing if it’s not ambitious.
And it needs to be. If services are to take off and develop in the way they deserve to to, then the targets and ambitions need to be set high. I reckon it helps to focus the mind somewhat. What do you think?
Read the full interview on TimesOnline