Nokia announced that Michael Halbherr has been appointed
executive vice president to spearhead Nokia’s revised mission in mobile and
location-based services. Effective July 1, 2011, Michael Halbherr will
become a member of the Nokia Leadership Team, reporting to CEO Stephen Elop.
Halbherr will lead a new Location & Commerce
business, which will be formed by integrating the NAVTEQ business with Nokia’s
social location services operations.
The Location and Commerce business will develop a new
class of integrated social location products and services for consumers, as
well as platform services and local commerce services for device manufacturers,
application developers, internet services providers, merchants, and
advertisers.
While continuing to serve NAVTEQ’s existing customers,
the Location & Commerce business will provide exciting new opportunities
through the integration of Nokia community data. In addition to a broad
portfolio of products and services for the wider internet ecosystem, the
Location & Commerce business will also create integrated social location
offerings in support of Nokia’s strategic goal in smartphones, including Nokia
products with Windows Phones, as well as support for bringing the internet to
the next billion.
“Focusing on location and commerce is a natural next
step in Nokia’s Services journey. We will provide next generation
social-location applications and commerce to differentiate Nokia. We also aim
to extend our content and services offerings to all consumers by making them
available to partners and customers on a wide variety of devices and operating
systems. Michael is a widely recognized authority in the fields of mobility and
social location services, and I am delighted to appoint him to lead an area of
our business that will be crucial in Nokia’s transformation strategy,” said Stephen Elop, CEO. Nokia.
Halbherr has been with Nokia since 2006, most recently
leading the product unit in Nokia’s Services business, based in Berlin. Prior
to joining Nokia in 2006, he worked for the Boston Consulting Group and at
europatweb, the Internet investment vehicle of Groupe Arnault, overseeing all
technology investments. In 2001, Halbherr became CEO of gate5 AG, a leading
supplier of mapping, routing and navigation software and services
globally. In 2006, gate5 was acquired by Nokia. Halbherr holds a PhD in
electrical engineering from ETH Zurich, spending four years at the MIT
Laboratory for Computer Science.
By Telecomlead.com Team
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