11 April 2010

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo On The
Challenges & Promise of the New Mobile Industry

Nokia Chairman, CEO and President Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was recently interviewed by Om Malik on the Gigaom technology blog.

During the interview Olli-Pekka offered his thoughts on where Nokia is headed and the importance of mobile services. He also hinted at some of the developments and features that will come with future Nokia mobile devices.

Despite the company's big plans, Nokia does face an uphill battle against its pretty well-entrenched competitors for survival that gets steeper every day. "We have been transforming the company from a hardware company to a more value-added services company," he said. "We have brought in new people with new processes and are doing things in a new way. This change has been extremely complex and time-consuming."

"Today consumers expect more from the device than just hardware. They want hardware along with services such as music and navigation built into the price of the device," Kallasvuo said. So while in the past Nokia competed with other handset makers on hardware features, now it’s competing on new ways of doing business.

"You can’t really call it a mobile industry. Things are quite blurry. The Internet and mobile are converging and the PC and cell phone are merging," said Kallasvuo.

Symbian has a lot of positive telecom-centric legacy which allows it to scale really well,” Kallasvuo said. The new version of the Symbian OS, he added, has improvements — said to include better graphics, multitouch, support of multiple home pages and a better music store, amongst other things — that will speak for themselves. I’m not holding my breath, however, mostly because I think the guys at Apple and Android are innovating at Internet speed. Plus the new Symbian isn’t likely to make it to the market until late June.

Five things to know about Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo

1. His first mobile phone weighed five pounds.
2. He currently uses the Nokia E71.
3. His favorite book is "Catch-22."
4. His role model is former Finland President Martti Ahtisaari, winner of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize.
5. The company he most admires is Procter & Gamble.