The former chief of struggling Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia Oyj is
to make a comeback to the tech sector as chairman of a Swedish company
selling standard software for pay-TV boxes.
Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is to
become chairman of privately owned Zenterio, formed from a division
sold by Nokia a decade ago where many former Nokia people still work.
Kallasvuo
was replaced at Nokia in 2010 by Stephen Elop after the Finnish group
struggled to keep pace with smartphone rivals such as Apple Inc and
those based on Android software.
"The operating system market for
set-top boxes and IPTV (internet protocol television) is extremely
fragmented. Each set-box manufacturer has its own software," he told
Reuters on Thursday.
"What Zenterio can offer is a
hardware-independent solution for pay-TV operators. We are talking to
many, many top-tier operators globally," he added.
Kallasvuo gave
no details of the talks or targets for a company which last year had
revenue of less than 100 million crowns and which has been developing
its software for many years.
But he said 200 million set-top boxes
were sold annually and that the company took licence fees for its
operating system, which is based on the Linux standard.
"The growth targets of course are quite high, it is a small company and a big market," he added.
Kallasvuo
bowed out of Nokia in 2010 but said he had kept an eye on the company.
He declined to express any opinions about the way Nokia is being run by
Elop, whose strategy has been to launch mobile phones with software from
Microsoft Corp, his former employer.
© Thomson Reuters 2012