14 DAY TRIAL // Risto Siilasmaa, chairman of Nokia’s board since May 2012 and interim CEO, appears confident in the company’s future, despite the imminent depart from the handset division.
Speaking to Nokia Conversations, he did say that recent deal with Microsoft would result in moving 32,000 of the company’s 88,000 employees to the software giant, which will be a great transformation for the vendor.
However, this would not be the only time that Nokia changes, especially since the company has started to focus on coming up with innovative products such as the Lumia 1020.
“Nokia will look very different without the mobile devices and services business. But it will be a strong company, with healthy finances and three strong businesses – NSN, HERE, and Advanced Technologies – each a leader in technology and innovation,” he said.
Even so, Risto Siilasmaa is confident that Nokia will manage to reinvent itself, and claims that there are areas where the company can advance.
“The first element of Nokia Reinvented is NSN, our networks business, supplying technology and infrastructure to operators worldwide. We will continue to manage NSN as a strong, independent unit,” the interim CEO continued.
“NSN is the mobile broadband specialist and especially strong in LTE. With our strong and focused investment in R&D, we will continue to launch uniquely innovative solutions such as the Liquid Applications that was announced in Barcelona earlier this year.”
Furthermore, Risto Siilasmaa says that Nokia will also manage to grow strong with HERE, which is set to become the leading location cloud business.
Location services and technologies are seen as a key factor in the future development of mobile Internet, given that more and more devices will come with cloud connectivity.
On top of all that, Nokia will also form a new business, Advanced Technologies, which is based on the activities that the current CTO unit and the IP business team are conducting.
The company will focus on innovation in various technology fields, the same as it did before. At the moment, Nokia has a portfolio of over 10,000 carefully selected patent families.
“During the coming months, my main focus will be on clarifying our strategy, designing the right corporate structure to achieve the targets we set, and together with my colleagues on the Nokia board, we will focus on identifying the right person who will be the CEO of Nokia going forward,” he added.
“I believe this is the beginning of the next 150 years of Nokia’s story,” Risto Siilasmaa concluded.