Backlash Against Nokia CEO Overshadows ‘Sea Ray’ Excitement: The Week in Tweets

Did Nokia CEO Stephen Elop shoot himself in the foot when he “leaked” footage of the company’s first Windows-based smartphone, codenamed “Sea Ray”?

Almost as quickly as the hype faded over leaked footage of Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7 device, codenamed “Sea Ray,” criticism began over the source of the leak—Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop.

 

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Backdrop: on Thursday, during the Nokia Connection conference in Singapore, Elop asked a room full of tech journalists and bloggers to turn off their cameras so he could unveil a big secret. The big secret was “Sea Ray,” Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7 device since Nokia’s high-profile partnership with Microsoft, Elop’s former employer.

The device he showed looked exactly like the impressively designed MeeGo-based N9 announced the day before, but Elop pointed to a mysterious “third button” to prove it wasn’t the same phone.

Nokia was either disturbingly naïve or merely obtuse about the leak, but it didn’t take long for secretly-captured video footage of Elop’s “Sea Ray” presentation to hit the Internet.

Elop’s handling of the leak has pissed off a small, but passionate, group of Meego OS fans. That’s because the day before, Elop had announced the N9. The next day was the Sea Ray “leak,” followed by an extremely controversial interview on a Finnish radio station, where Elop reportedly said that the Nokia N9 will be the last MeeGo phone, even if it’s successful.

This week Twitter buzz about Nokia started off strong with the N9 announcement on Tuesday, briefly peaked with the Sea Ray leak on Thursday and rumors of an October 26 launch date. By Friday, anti-Elop sentiment reached an all-time high. There’s rumors of Elop being investigated by Nokia board members and a Twitition for Nokia to keep MeeGo. Click the slideshow below to start the tweet-based journey into one of the strangest tech stories of the week.