Reuters has confirmed that Ilari Nurmi, Nokia's vice president of product marketing and responsible for the company's smartphone strategy, has now left the company. He does not make it clear whether it was of his own accord or whether the company insisted on his departure, and Nokia is not commenting on the issue.
Speculation revolves around the latter as investors seem to have been disappointed with the Lumia 920 and 820 announcement that took place this time last month. Though the devices themselves seem to be strong contenders in the marketplace, and have certainly generated a lot of interest, Nokia's stock fell close to 16% that day. It is believed lack of pricing and availability details, not to mention the long time between official product announcement and actual general availability, to have been the main reasons behind the drop.
Another part of the puzzle could have been the whole PureView debacle. We covered how it was discovered that one of the official promotional videos which appeared to be shot with a smartphone was in fact shot with a professional filming rig. Though the company never claimed it had been shot with the Lumia 920, they did lead us in that direction. After being exposed they quickly apologized.
All of these mishaps have darkened what could have been an excellent launch for the new Lumia devices and have put even more pressure on the company to do well with their new line in the upcoming months.
We do not know if these were the reasons behind Nurmi's departure, but we know they can't have helped his case. Either way, we just hope Nokia gets its act together and has a successful few months following the launch taking place at the end of October.
Source: Reuters Image: AllThingsD
34 Comments - Add comment