Nokia's Stock Tumbles On Stephen Elop's First Day

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Most CEOs are judged by the performance of the stock price of their firm. Like it or not, that’s a big thing that the board of directors looks for in a CEO. So, new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s first day didn’t go so good as Nokia’s shares dropped on concerns over the Nokia N8 delays.

There is some conflicting reports over if the phone will be delayed or not. It was rumored last week, and we (and many other sites) reported on “news” that Nokia had confirmed that the phone would be delayed until October. But now, Nokia is saying that is false and that the phone will ship by the end of September, as originally planned.

Remember that Stephen Elop came from Microsoft, and he’s also Nokia’s first non-Finn CEO. It’s a big step for the patriotic Finnish company, but, Elop is a software guy from a software company. And Nokia makes great phone hardware with middling phone software. It’s obvious they’re trying to make a point by hiring Elop.

Analyst Michael Schroeder was quoted by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as to why Nokia needs to ship the N8 sooner, rather than later:

If they start shipping in mid-October they can’t book those orders in the third-quarter results, and if a few hundred thousand units are involved, it could jeopardize third-quarter profitability targets.

As for the Nokia N8 itself, it looks to be quite impressive, from a hardware side. It’s offering a 3.5-inch screen, a 680MHz processor, 256MB of RAM, 16GB of memory and a 12MP camera that Nokia calls the best ever on a mobile phone.