A Week of Renewal: Nokia Shakes Up Management, Emphasizes Location-Based Services

A day after the release of its newest smartphone, Nokia NOK announced Wednesday the promotion of an executive, Michael Halbherr, to head the company's re-emphasis on mobile and location-based services. Nokia has been revamping its operations around the world since its new Chief Executive, Stephen Elop, left Microsoft MSFT last year. It has shed thousands of jobs, reviewed its mobile phone strategy, and invested in new products. The company has taken recent action to better compete with rivals Apple AAPL and Google GOOG, who continue to innovate in the smartphone space. Nokia announced on Tuesday the N9, a smartphone that integrates HD video and an 8-megapixel camera, among other features. Halbherr will lead a new business that will integrate the NAVTEQ business with Nokia's social location services operations. According to a Nokia release, the new Location & 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." Elop expressed confidence in the move. "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." Shares of Nokia have taken a beating this year. Trading above $11 in February, the stock is now trading in the $6 range.