[Jason Dunn]

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile...otest-20110211/

"After the announcement of the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft this morning workers voiced their concern with the deal by walking out of Nokia facilities. It is believed that as many as a thousand workers marched out today (or took the day off using flex time) so that the company would know that they don't believe the partnership is in their best interest, even after CEO' Stephen Elop's startlingly frank "burning platform" memo earlier this week."

I'd never applaud someone losing their job, but it's clear that Nokia needed to make a serious change in direction if they wanted to have a future in the mobile industry. A lesser company would have waited until things got so bad that they did it out of desperation rather than as a carefully considered decision.

UPDATE: I've amended the headline because it's not quite the "walk out" I thought it was. From a Nokia spokesperson who contacted The Next Web:

"Some of our employees - not thousands - in Tampere and Oulu decided to take advantage of Flexitime and left the office at around 14.00. This is completely understandable: we have announced major news today, and understand that employees may want to digest this. We will continue active employee communications over the coming weeks, to further engage our employees with the new strategy, and to report on the progress of strategy implementation planning."

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile...otest-20110211/

"After the announcement of the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft this morning workers voiced their concern with the deal by walking out of Nokia facilities. It is believed that as many as a thousand workers marched out today (or took the day off using flex time) so that the company would know that they don't believe the partnership is in their best interest, even after CEO' Stephen Elop's startlingly frank "burning platform" memo earlier this week."

I'd never applaud someone losing their job, but it's clear that Nokia needed to make a serious change in direction if they wanted to have a future in the mobile industry. A lesser company would have waited until things got so bad that they did it out of desperation rather than as a carefully considered decision.

UPDATE: I've amended the headline because it's not quite the "walk out" I thought it was. From a Nokia spokesperson who contacted The Next Web:

"Some of our employees - not thousands - in Tampere and Oulu decided to take advantage of Flexitime and left the office at around 14.00. This is completely understandable: we have announced major news today, and understand that employees may want to digest this. We will continue active employee communications over the coming weeks, to further engage our employees with the new strategy, and to report on the progress of strategy implementation planning."

[Darius Wey]

Losing a job sucks, but this walk out seems a tad premature. Unless they've already been notified by the powers within, who knows what Nokia has in store for them? Perhaps the company is willing to retrain their workers to develop for Windows Phone 7. Or perhaps they'll be able to apply their talents elsewhere.

Honestly, the tech industry can be incredibly harsh. It evolves so much and at such a rapid rate that you really need to adapt to stay relevant.

[Paragon]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

Some of our employees - not thousands - in Tampere and Oulu decided to take advantage of Flexitime and left the office at around 14.00. This is completely understandable: we have announced major news today, and understand that employees may want to digest this. We will continue active employee communications over the coming weeks, to further engage our employees with the new strategy, and to report on the progress of strategy implementation planning."

That's just marketing speak. What that translates to in English is: Crap! 1000 people just walked out, we better spin this now.

On a side note....I would love to be a fly on the wall of Edward R's (msmobiles) padded cell today.

Dave

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Paragon

That's just marketing speak. What that translates to in English is: Crap! 1000 people just walked out, we better spin this now.

I thought so too initially, but another person who had been through something similar pointed out that management knows no one is going to do any work after hearing that news, so giving people the day off to mull it over is the smart thing to do.

Until we read statements from the employees themselves though, this is all just speculation.

[Paragon]

Agreed!

However, it's bound to be an awfully rough road at Nokia for awhile, as this all plays out.

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

I'd never applaud someone losing their job, but it's clear that Nokia needed to make a serious change in direction if they wanted to have a future in the mobile industry. A lesser company would have waited until things got so bad that they did it out of desperation rather than as a carefully considered decision.

You're giving Nokia too much credit here. Things have gotten so bad that they have partnered with one of the companies who they repeatedly pooh-poohed before. No matter whether you think the partnership is the right idea, Nokia has done it out of a matter of desperation. You don't ditch your two platforms, both your established and your future platform, unless you're desperate.

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

You're giving Nokia too much credit here. Things have gotten so bad that they have partnered with one of the companies who they repeatedly pooh-poohed before.

Did you read the memo from their CEO? I saw a lot of self-awareness there, not clueless desperation.

[Nelson Ocampo]

I've been browsing the Nokia developer forums, and there is definitely a lot of panic and anger going on. I'm sure internal developers are feeling similar. A lot of them feel that Nokia shouldn't give up on Symbian or MeeGo. Finland is very proud of Nokia, and to have them adopt an OS that wasn't home grown feels very wrong.

This is a big change. A lot of the things that these people have been working on for the past year or so will soon be thrown out the window. That has to be pretty tough to swallow.

A lot of these workers may be out of a job soon. While Symbian is being kept around for another year or so, there isn't going to be any further development on the platform itself. And the MeeGo team is going to be cut down significantly.

There will be people that see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. There will also be people who see it as a betrayal. Both of those reactions are understandable. The former will help a person bounce back faster than the latter.

I wish them all luck.

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

Did you read the memo from their CEO? I saw a lot of self-awareness there, not clueless desperation.

Exactly. The current CEO, Stephen Elop, is an outsider who was finally hired out of desperation after Nokia's stagnation. Until him, the company was full of clueless desperation. Witness their scatterbrained Symbian/Maemo/MeeGo/Ovi efforts.

Mike Mace has been penning some great articles on Nokia, whom he was intimately familiar with.

http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.co...leverness.html
http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.co...hard-part.html

--janak