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In an article published by the New York Times over the weeked, Former Nokia employees stated that Nokia’s early success was the reason behind their failure to respond to the iPhone.
They went on to say that Nokia as a mobile brand, became complacent and was clueless as to what consumers wanted. You can read the whole article here. A Nokia Spokesperson said that these former employees were “managers with individual roles or leaders of small teams” but it is definitely worth the read.
Some of the highlight quotes I found were:
Kai Nyman, former chief architect for enterprise domain strategy:
There were plenty of years to make Symbian better. We could have rewritten the whole code several times over. We had the resources and the people. But we didn’t do it.
Mr. Hakkarainen, the manager on a smartphone development team”
We demonstrated it (The online App Store idea in 2004) within Nokia and said this is what we needed,” said Mr. Hakkarainen, who worked at Nokia from 1999 through 2007. “We tried to convince middle and upper management. But there was no way.
Juhani Risku, former Symbian UI manager:
It was management by committee. Ideas fell victim to fighting among managers with competing agendas, or were rejected as too costly, risky or insignificant for a global market leader.
Ari Hakkarainen, former marketing manager:
Proposals were screened by interlocking management committees with authority to block ideas under consensual rules for decision making. Proposals were often rejected because their payoffs were seen as too small.
From what I’ve seen and heard myself from a couple former-Nokia-employee friends, that all sounds about right. What do you think? Can the new CEO handle the “Soviet style bureaucracy“?
Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile and mobile-related accessories.
Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus 
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