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Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

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Re: Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

#61

There's no conspiracy here. Elop has been liquidating as quickly as possible. See: http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/2011/02/nokia_elop_buying_shares_... Which includes: Tallqvist told YLE that Elop will divest all of his Microsoft shares as soon as security exchange regulations and Nokia's own internal directives allow. Elop intends to purchase Nokia shares as soon as it is legally possible. As an executive at MS who annou…

>There's no . . . conflict of interest since all of his MS shares will be gone before any actual work product from the alliance has occurred.

As a general rule, whenever someone uses a phrase as awkward as "actual work product", they're trying to twist the truth.

Stock price relies on more than just reported earnings. The announcement that Nokia has bet the company on Windows Phone 7 affects MSFT's price now.

Re: Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

#62

There's no conspiracy here. Elop has been liquidating as quickly as possible. See: http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/2011/02/nokia_elop_buying_shares_... Which includes: Tallqvist told YLE that Elop will divest all of his Microsoft shares as soon as security exchange regulations and Nokia's own internal directives allow. Elop intends to purchase Nokia shares as soon as it is legally possible. As an executive at MS who annou…

>There's no . . . conflict of interest since all of his MS shares will be gone before any actual work product from the alliance has occurred. As a general rule, whenever someone uses a phrase as awkward as "actual work product", they're trying to twist the truth. Stock price relies on more than just reported earnings. The announcement that Nokia has bet the company on Windows Phone 7 affects MSFT's price now .

[deleted]

Re: Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

#63
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The partnership is still suspicious; any reasonable person would tell you Nokia should have picked Android instead. There's no competitive advantage picking up WP7, unless microsoft wanted to subsidize every nokia handset

"Any reasonable person" Careful - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well There are serious competitive considerations for Nokia not choosing Android. I think Elop outlines them pretty intelligently here - http://video.allthingsd.com/video/nokia-ceo-on-choosing-wind...

It's interesting to see him acknowledge directly that his personal familiarity with Microsoft played a role in the decision (at about 1:00 in). But aside from that, well... opinions differ. At about 3:15, he said that the danger if they went with Android is:

1) The platform would succeed.

2) They'd be one among a crowd of Android phone manufacturers.

3) It would be hard to differentiate from the others.

Contrast that to Windows Phone 7, where:

1) The platform is playing catch-up, and may fail entirely.

2) They're already one among a crowd of Windows Phone manufacturers, with LG, Samsung and HTC already shipping, and Dell having devices in the pipeline.

3) The party that controls the platform has chosen not to allow differentiation, requiring all the devices to be lookalikes[1].

On all his supposed drawbacks of Android, WP7 looks even worse.

There's some other odd stuff in the video, which begs for explanation. He starts by saying that "Microsoft has placed a large bet on us." But it isn't yet obvious why Microsoft has bet more on Nokia's success than it has on the success of the other WP7 handset manufacturers. And if they have, I can't imagine HTC or Samsung being happy about it.

There's also some stuff at about 2:30 about how each party has licensed technology from the other, with an implication (though not an outright statement) that money might be flowing both ways. If that's true, it raises the possibility that the sale of an HTC WP7 handset results in royalty payments to Nokia, for the mapping technology that Microsoft has licensed. That could cause real friction with the other vendors.

(To clarify: the mapping technology bit was part of the announcement, though it wasn't clear what it was doing there; the payment structures were not announced, but Elop did seem to imply in that video that money would be going both ways, and I'm not sure what other reason there is that Microsoft would have to write checks to Nokia.)

[1] http://mobilementalism.com/2011/02/12/the-photo-the-nokia-fa... has a photo (second in the post) with a bunch of them. They all really do look alike.

Re: Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

#64
I don't see it elsewhere in the comments, but to be very clear, Elop's being listed there does not mean he is the 7th biggest individual shareholder at Microsoft. The headline is 100% inaccurate.

Not all shareholders are publicly reported — there are likely hundreds, even thousands, with larger individual stakes, both those still working Microsoft and not. Moreover, that list doesn't even necessarily report all of the holdings of each individual, many listed in public filings can and do own far larger amounts (by orders of magnitudes).

I'm not sure what reporting requirements dictated Elop be listed there to begin with, but regardless, the article is wrong.

HN desperately needs the ability to retroactively retract such silliness when it happens (which it does from time to time), because people tend to quote and repeat headlines so quickly these days that they create their own truth. (Six months from now, if someone says, "Isn't Elop the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft", you'd say, "Yeah, I remember hearing that, I think he is.")

Case in point:

  http://www.google.com/search?q=7th+biggest+individual+shareh...

Sigh.

Re: Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

#65
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Any reasonable person" Careful - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well There are serious competitive considerations for Nokia not choosing Android. I think Elop outlines them pretty intelligently here - http://video.allthingsd.com/video/nokia-ceo-on-choosing-wind...

It's interesting to see him acknowledge directly that his personal familiarity with Microsoft played a role in the decision (at about 1:00 in). But aside from that, well... opinions differ. At about 3:15, he said that the danger if they went with Android is: 1) The platform would succeed. 2) They'd be one among a crowd of Android phone manufacturers. 3) It would be hard to differentiate from the others. Contrast that…

> I'm not sure what other reason there is that Microsoft would have to write checks to Nokia.

Microsoft is already in the habit of paying companies to force their users to use Bing search (see Verizon replacing Google search with Bing on some of their Android phones).

Though for Nokia's sake I hope they're not getting paid per use but per device. Bing's quality outside the US is dreadful, so the vast majority of Nokia's customers are either getting a crappy experience or will somehow need to replace the default search engine.

Re: Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

#67

So now Nokia's decision to replace Symbian has nothing to do with a careful analysis of the situation, but everything to do with keeping $3 million dollars worth of Microsoft stock on the up for 1 man? I have not seen 1 insightful post since this FUD has been spreading. It's amazing how much petty hatred is out there towards Microsoft... I don't even think this has anything to do with Microsoft itself, but rather wit…

petty hatred? Microsoft made a lot of enemies bullying their way to the top. Much of the enmity and fear is well placed. Microsoft acted like Walmart for 15 years destroying their competition and their suppliers. Many remember getting run out of business by these guys. It's not petty, it's payback.

Re: Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

#68

So now Nokia's decision to replace Symbian has nothing to do with a careful analysis of the situation, but everything to do with keeping $3 million dollars worth of Microsoft stock on the up for 1 man? I have not seen 1 insightful post since this FUD has been spreading. It's amazing how much petty hatred is out there towards Microsoft... I don't even think this has anything to do with Microsoft itself, but rather wit…

Pardon for the comment. I will likely be voted out of existence. Regardless, before that happens and you can see this comment ... is there a contingent gaming the scores? Perhaps paid trollers? How did this get 48 points? A post that's basicly saying "criticism of Microsoft is petty" getting cheered like it's the Gettysburg address? I smell something fishy going on.

Re: Stephen Elop is the 7th biggest individual shareholder of Microsoft

#69
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

his holdings of NOK are reportedly 0 so far, which makes sense - he's been on the job for less than a year so 1st vesting cliff haven't been reached yet.

Yes, but after 1 year cliff, it would/should be much more than $3M.

hopefully
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