Elop

'It's a new dawn for Nokia, ' Mr. Elop said as he presented the phones at a Nokia conference in London.

But Elop said on Thursday that Nokia's final assessment was that "we would not be able to differentiate enough" on Android's platform.

"Lumia means light [and] a new dawn for Nokia, " Mr Elop told the Nokia World conference in London.

Elop said that none of the employees will lose their jobs this year, and that the personnel transfers would be made "over time. "

Elop said Nokia (NOK) was like a person standing on a burning platform and would have to jump into icy water to save itself.

Mr Elop disputes that Nokia's problems have much do with its Finnishness, which served the company well enough in the past.

Elop is a man on a mission alright, but it's hard to see how it's not mission impossible.

Stephen Elop, Nokia's chief executive, said last week that the company needed to improve rapidly its position in the smartphone market.

Nokia recently dumped its Finnish boss and replaced him with a dynamic outsider, Stephen Elop, formerly a high-flier at Microsoft.

As you might remember, Anssi quit Nokia a couple months ago, following the Finnish Giants appointment of Stephen Elop as the new CEO.

Late Thursday night, the company announced that it is appointing Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft's Business Division, as its new CEO.

On February 11th, at a "strategy and financial briefing" in London, Mr Elop is due to announce the change he has in mind.

Elop said there will be a prominent button within the browser-based programs to open a document in the desktop versions of Office.

"These are trends we're trying to understand, " Elop said.

By some accounts this system and its users now account for more than one-third of the phones sold globally, Mr Elop wrote in his memo.

To his admirers, Mr Elop's willingness to take decisive action is just what Nokia had been missing.

Yet when Mr Elop announced Nokia's strategy last week it sounded to critics like an admission of defeat.

In it Mr Elop compared the Finnish mobile-phone company to a man on a "burning platform" deciding whether to jump into "icy waters" .

Mr. Elop recently helped woo GM to use SharePoint software to run GM's internal Web site, a deal for which Google was also being considered.

"We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees, " said Stephen Elop, Nokia chief executive.

Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop cited Europe as one of the problem markets and Android as the culprit.

"We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees, " said Nokia's chief executive Stephen Elop.

Stephen Elop started his memo with the story of a man on a burning oil platform who plunges 30 metres into freezing water to save his skin.

The plan was for Mr. Ballmer to fly privately into Helsinki, where he would then travel to a private Nokia facility, Mr. Elop added.

Given his background, Mr Elop could surely make such a partnership work.

In September Stephen Elop, one of Microsoft's leading lights, becomes boss of Nokia, a troubled Finnish handset-maker.

Ahead of Nokia's announcement of a new business strategy, a memo written by Stephen Elop, its chief executive, was leaked.

Thanks to a recent partnership, Nokia has "a very unique relationship with Microsoft, " and Windows 8 looks "beautiful, " Elop said.

"This signals our intent to be today's leader in smartphone design and craftsmanship, " Mr. Elop said.

The challenge for Mr Elop is to make sure his children's Finnish handsets become a source of envy in the schoolyard, rather than ridicule.

Nokia said that Elop will help lead its "substantial transformation" from a hardware company to a software company.

Yet, even union leaders admit radical surgery was required, and praise Mr Elop's strong communication skills.

The agreement's terms weren't disclosed, but Mr. Elop has said Nokia will receive billions of dollars from Microsoft.

Last week, Finland's Nokia announced that Microsoft business manager Stephen Elop would replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo as its chief executive.

Elop, a 46-year-old Canadian, holds a degree in computer engineering and management from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop on Friday alluded to cost cutting, job retraining and layoffs ahead.

"We have different forms of value transfer in different directions" Elop said.

Elop has played a role in the growing cooperation between Nokia and Microsoft in recent years.

"My job is to take this organization though a period of disruption, " Elop told reporters.

Mr Elop says of these companies: "They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us. "

"We believe that the world is ready for something new" , said Elop.

Mr Elop insists Nokia and Microsoft together stand a better chance of creating a "three horse race" with Apple and Google.

"There is softening of demand but the inventory movements were substantial, " Elop said.

But Stephen Elop, Nokia's new boss, may have set a new standard.

Mr Elop has blamed cultural and management failures for the subsequent loss of edge.

Mr. Elop said 8. 6 million people are already using Office 2010 and related products as part of Microsoft's largest-ever testing program.

'I'm guessing they weren't happy with the way the decision was going, ' said Mr. Elop, who called Mr. Gundotra's message a 'tweet bomb. '

Even so, Mr Elop is unlikely to find a direct route to success in this, his most difficult task.

Elop, 46, joined Microsoft in January 2008.