Either Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has a really sophisticated plan in his head or he is just being ‘bluntly’ crazy. First, he buys a firm and decides to switch the firm-developed software with that of Microsoft’s; days pass and he talks about layoffs to be a part and parcel of “improving the financial situation” and then decides to sell the company after a few weeks? See how pointless all those decisions were! Well aware of what he is doing, these might be the worst decisions any CEO has ever taken.

The company, haughty from the yester days ‘Nokia’ years, carelessly ignored the fact that smartphones were on the verge of taking over almost the entirety of the mobile market. When they came to their senses, they signed up with Microsoft to launch Windows phone. It was a smart move, but even with the sales of the Windows phone climbing a steep slope for the past few quarters (277% increase in the second quarter of 2012), Nokia’s budget is still weakening day-by-day as Windows phone sales partake of less than 5%of the total mobile sales.

As a bid to salvage the company, Nokia has been laying off thousands of workers in the last two months. They included Qt (trolltech), Tampere and Meltemi development employees.

On Thursday, the company has decided to sell 500 patents to the U.S. Vringo Firm and diversify its Qt assets to a Finnish firm Digia Oyz. Value of the Qt deal was not disclosed but there are speculations that the value is only a fraction of the amount Nokia paid to acquire Qt. The patents deal is going off at $22 million with an additional 35%should the patents generate additional revenue. The share value of the company went up by about 9% following this announcement. Whether this is for good or bad, only time will tell.

The unbreakable Nokia might soon have to face checkmate if these kind of rash decisions continue to take place. Let’s hope this is not another RIM in the making.

Nikitha

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