NokiaPlanB was a hoax

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/16/nokia-plan-b-was-just-a-hoax-all-along/

by lid • 15 years ago

78 25 15 years ago

It's a sad state of affairs for your company when an anonymous guy can put up a blog offering a fake plan to turn things around and get a boatload of attention and excitement. On the other hand: we're living in interesting times. A guy with an interesting idea can, overnight, capture the imagination of tens of thousands of people for very little time and money.

I guess for anyone who was holding onto hope of a non-Olop, non-Microsoft Nokia, there's only one thing left to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A

brudgers• 15 years ago

The fact that it was covered as news to the degree that Engadget has to run a follow up is symptomatic of a far sadder state of affairs which exists in tech media.

Ras_• 15 years ago

Well... I heard about this on Finnish public radio (after reading here). They should know better.

jarek3• 15 years ago

> It's a sad state of affairs for your company when an anonymous guy can put up a blog offering a fake plan to turn things around and get a boatload of attention and excitement.

No, it's not. It's a controversial state of affairs at most.

The reason this plan was given attention is because a lot of people disagree with Plan A. It says nothing about the feasibility of Plan A or how sad the state of affairs is.

pavlov• 15 years ago

False hopes and vague handwaving concepts have always been suitable vehicles for attracting attention and excitement, if that's all one is looking for.

This "Nokia Plan B" was no different. It didn't offer anything actionable. Remember that the plan's main proposal was:

Return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience.

Is that really an exciting turnaround plan for a company of some 120,000+ employees? The whole plan boiled down to: "Let's keep doing the same thing we've tried unsuccessfully for years, but let's just do it better." Of course, there's always bound to be people who can't let go. (I know someone who bought Nokia shares in early 2000 at more than 10x the current price and is still holding on to them.)

danilocampos2• 15 years ago

Eh, I dunno, there was some sensible action in there. Reducing to two locations the enormous, global oilslick that is Nokia's R&D seems like a good idea. Gutting all the outsourcing seems like a good idea. De-bureaucratizing and de-cluttering the organization seems, to me, a lot more sensible than outsourcing the very soul of your product's user experience and becoming little more than a commodity electronics manufacturer.

Like Tony Hsieh says, you can't be successful by outsourcing something that should be your core competency.

Andys• 15 years ago

Nokia has been trying "innovation and overwhelmingly superior products" for years? could have fooled me..

ars• 15 years ago

Sometimes these things take on a life of their own.

While the author of the plan was not serious it seems there are a lot of people who do actually like his plan, and do take it seriously.

Maybe some of them will organize using this plan as a starting template.

markstahler• 15 years ago

My last epic fail was a hoax too, I promise.

jawee• 15 years ago

Being a shareholder is kind of a weak claim to authority when anybody can be anyway, isn´t it? If he picked up a couple of NOK stock is he able to be taken exponentially more seriously?

Frazzydee• 15 years ago

They didn't even need to be a shareholder.

Shareholders with voting shares have the right to attend shareholders meetings and vote in the board of directors. In such large corporations, shareholders usually appoint a proxyholder who attends the meeting and votes on the shareholder's behalf.

My understanding was that Nokia Plan B was basically soliciting such proxies by asking shareholders to give their votes to them for the purpose of replacing the board.

Corporate law usually doesn't require a proxyholder to be a shareholder, so they actually didn't even need such a (weak) claim to authority.

As a side note, soliciting proxies usually requires following proper corporate law procedure by sending prescribed materials. Nokia Plan B just had a website, which was an early indication this was a fake.

jarek3• 15 years ago

The beauty of the hoax was that in this situation, fake plan and real, well-intentioned but ill-conceived plan are basically indistinguishable.

barista• 15 years ago

Only goes to show the state of tech reporting. So superficial and trigger happy.

natnat• 15 years ago

You can easily remove the word "tech" from that comment.

toolate• 15 years ago

I'm still holding out for http://nokiaplanxp.com/

jarek3• 15 years ago

I love the design of the 6300.

nhangen• 15 years ago

A hoax, or is it only being called a hoax because it failed?

Seems like it's an extra attempt at extending the 15 minutes.

Bossman• 15 years ago

Crazy that it got so far. I have to admit, I was pretty much convinced when I saw it almost 2 days ago now (even if I was a tad bit skeptical). Crazy that print media picked it up today, too. Though, it does say something about what people think of Nokia's decisions lately...

shareme• 15 years ago

My only hoax fail was the rumor that MS was buying Mahalo..

R Scoble still hates me being taken by such an obvious fake claim as he was calling/email MA of TC and TC even had to put a small note on the TC site about ti being fake.

NokiaPlanB was executed better. Just enough small stuff to believe and something real big that was fake.

aaronsw• 15 years ago

What would be really cool is if "NokiaPlanB was a hoax" was a hoax -- anybody could register a NokiaPlanB Twitter account and claim this.

raufrajar• 15 years ago

But that twitter account won't enjoy redirection from nokiaplanb.com

brc• 15 years ago

Congrats to those here who were skeptical of the initial announcement due to the lack of details.

Put me in the camp that says it didn't entirely start out as a hoax, but that a hoax looked increasingly like a good way of backing out gracefully after someone pointed out the rules.

Vivtek• 15 years ago

I guess that explains the lack of bios, then.

Natsu• 15 years ago

Is it bad that I never realized that anyone thought the site was anything except a joke?

cap10morgan• 15 years ago

No. That's all it ever was. You get a "basic critical thinking" merit badge for realizing it.

NokiaPlanB was a hoax

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