Nokia Is Not for Sale, Rumors baseless - Nokia CEO Stephen Elop

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said rumors that Nokia was for sale were "baseless," amidst reports that the struggling handset maker's Chief Technology Officer has taken an indefinite leave of absence because Nokia is replacing its MeeGo project with Windows Phone.

At the Open Mobile Summit in London, Elop said the rumors were "baseless." Buyout speculation was rife last week when Elop warned that handset salesthis year would be "substantially" below earlier estimates.

"Strategy transitions are difficult," Elop said at the time.

Half a day later, reports surfaced on Thursday that Nokia CTO Richard Green was taking an indefinite leave of absence for "personal reasons." Henry Tirri, head of Nokia Research Center, will act in his place.

The Next Web cites two sources saying that Green will be away at least until the end of the year, and probably won't return to Nokia afterwards.

Most people in the industry find the timing of Green's sudden departure too coincidental.

Russian mobile analyst Eldar Murtazin (the guy who also predicted the Microsoft-Nokia tie-up)tweeted, "Nokia CTO leave company due to disagree about Nokia strategy. Bad sign for Nokia. And thats only begining."

A Finnish newspaper cited in the New York Times reported that Green was unhappy about Nokia's reported plans to phase out the MeeGo smartphone platform, now that Nokia has partnered with Microsoft to bring Windows Phone 7 to Nokia handsets. For its part, Nokia has not commented on widespread belief that it will ditch MeeGo and is pushing ahead with the launch of its first MeeGo device.

Coincidentally, last fall Symbian Foundation chief Lee Williams quit unexpectedly for "personal reasons" as well. Symbian is the operating system on most Nokia phones.

When Nokia and Microsoft first announced plans to work together in early February, Elop denied it would lead to layoffs. In April, Nokia said it was cutting 4,000 jobs and outsourcing its Symbian development team to Accenture.

During Elop's keynote at the Open Mobile Summit, he also credited Apple for giving birth to its biggest rival, Android: "Apple created Android, or at least it created the conditions necessary to create Android. People decided they could not play in the Apple way, and they had to do something else. Then Google stepped in there and created Android...and others jumped on the Android train."