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Marko Ahtisaari is a remarkable Finnish tech entrepreneur who I have known for many years. As you might have heard in this blog, Nokia just acquired Dopplr where Marko was CEO and I was an investor. Now I have more good news about him, Marko has just been named the new head of design at Nokia.
Let me give you some background about Marko because his bio deserves a post in itself. Marko was raised in Helsinki, Dar es Salaam and New York. He studied economics, philosophy and musical composition at Columbia University and later lectured there in logic, philosophy of economics and the history of thought. Marko serves on the board of F-Secure, Newsmill, Artek and WITNESS and is an advisor to our dear Fon. Marko was also one of the Blyk cofounders as well as a founder and CEO of Dopplr. He received a Grammy Showcase Award. His father is a former UN diplomat, president of Finland and the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Peace prize.
Now as a Nokia shareholder I count on my friend Marko to help Nokia where Nokia needs most help and that is usability. Nokia makes great smartphones but while they have some of the best hardware in the world they fall behind in ease of use. My own current ranking would be this. I rank iPhone and Blackerry tied ahead of the pack, then Android, then Nokia and Windows Mobile goes last.
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No Comments
Jean-François on September 30, 2009 ·
It’s amazing to see how things can go so fast sometime. I had the pleasure to meet M. Ahtisaari during a Dopplr lunch in Hong Kong last June, h and explained us what the future of Dopplr would be, I guess that the acquisition of the company by Nokia plus him as head of design at Nokia was the last thing he had in mind 🙂
Juergen on October 1, 2009 ·
Congratulations Marko! This is a great opportunity for Marko and Nokia. I hope Nokia phones will be more user friendly, less complex and simply beautiful in the future.
oes tsetnoc on October 5, 2009 ·
Thanks for the infor regarding nokia, but when i use it the category’s page does show the thumbnail and the whole text of the entrys…
Pedro Assuncao on October 5, 2009 ·
Why don’t you consider the Palm WebOS on your usability ranking?
I never had a Palm Pre in my hand, but based on the many video reviews of the WebOS I would put it in first place slightly ahead of the Iphone(I can’t talk about the BB because i never used one), and by the way i’m a Iphone owner.
The WebOS brings many new good ideias to the Smartphone user experience specially in areas where the IPhone falls short, like Multitasking.
The Iphone has really good experience, but i really would love to have additional freedom to add custom home screens, Android style.
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Jean-François on September 30, 2009 ·
It’s amazing to see how things can go so fast sometime. I had the pleasure to meet M. Ahtisaari during a Dopplr lunch in Hong Kong last June, he explained us what was the future of Dopplr, I guess that the acquisition of the company by Nokia and him as head of design at Nokia was the last thing he had in mind 🙂