Stephen Elop Denies 'Trojan Horse' Accusations

Stephen Elop, executive vice president of the Microsoft Devices Group, has responded to accusations that he acted as a "Trojan horse" in Microsoft's takeover of Nokia.

On his first day in his new job, Elop was taking part in a live Q&A session to answer questions from the public about the future of Nokia under Microsoft.

Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services business on Friday and many have criticised Elop's role at Nokia, that led to Microsoft's eventual takeover.

Elop left Microsoft to take over as CEO of Nokia in September 2010. Within six months he announced Nokia was partnering exclusively with Microsoft to produce its Lumia smartphones. Following huge job cuts and plummeting revenue, Nokia announced in September last year its mobile phone business was to be bought out by Microsoft.

One comment in today's Q&A claimed Elop had "killed Nokia", by abandoning Meego and Symbian. In response, Elop said that he had been forced to make a "forceful decision" to give Nokia a chance to compete against the likes of Apple and Samsung.

"I know that there is a lot of emotion around some of the hard decisions that we had to make. Back in late 2010 and 2011, we carefully assessed the state of the internal Nokia operating system efforts".

Trojan Horse

When asked what he thought about being referred to as a "Trojan Horse" in online discussions and forums, Elop claimed that Nokia was now in fact a stronger company with NSN, HERE and Advanced Technologies.

"As for the Trojan horse thing, I have only ever worked on behalf of, and for the benefit of, Nokia shareholders while at Nokia," Elop stated. "Additionally, all fundamental business and strategy decisions were made with the support and approval of the Nokia board of directors, of which I was a member."

Elop refused to be drawn into revealing any new product launches but suggested that Microsoft's acquisition would mean that innovation in the company will now be able to move faster.

"We will each be able to innovate together in ways that we could not as separate companies," Elop said. "So, stay tuned to lots of innovation ahead."