Nokia "Plan B" Shareholder Group A Hoax

Nokia Plan B emerged on Facebook Tuesday, calling itself a group of "nine young Nokia shareholders" in a lengthy, detailed manifesto that criticized Nokia's recent strategy shift. The Finish mobile phone maker last week announced a broad alliance with Microsoft that will essentially replace Nokia's own Symbian mobile OS with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.

According to the group's open letter, the disgruntled shareholders wanted to "return the company to a strategy that seeks high growth and high profit margins through innovation and overwhelmingly superior products with unrivaled user experience." Specifically, the letter criticized Nokia's embrace of Windows Phone 7 and advocated a drastic restructuring of the partnership so that Nokia would release a small number of Windows Phone 7-based devices for North American customers only.

The open letter also demanded that Nokia fire CEO Stephen Elop, as well as three other top executives, and continue supporting Symbian while also making the open source platform MeeGo, co-developed by Nokia and Intel, as the mobile phone maker's primary software platform going forward. In addition, the detailed manifesto advocated a change in the company's hiring practices by focusing on recruiting young, talented software developers, as well as a shift toward more regionally centralized research and development.

Despite the letter's detailed and reasoned arguments, Nokia Plan B revealed itself to be a hoax. The group's Web site has now been replaced with a Twitter feed, also titled Nokia Plan B.

"There are no 'nine young investors', just one very bored engineer who really likes his iPhone. In case it's not 100% clear by now: NokiaPlanB is a hoax," the Twitter account stated.

Despite the hoax, Nokia's strategy shift has clearly miffed others. For example, Intel expressed disappointment in Nokia's move to Windows Phone 7, which could jeopardize the development of MeeGo.