Nokia has appointed Michael Halbherr, who’s recently been running the product unit in Nokia’s Services business, to the post of executive vice president. As well as being a member of the Nokia Leadership Team he’ll now lead a new Nokia Location & Commerce business.
The Location & Commerce business will create new ‘social location’ products and services while continuing to serve customers of Nokia’s NAVTEQ subsidiary.
Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO, said “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.”
Nokia acquired navigation business NAVTEQ in 2008. Larry Kaplan, CEO of NAVTEQ, will support the transition work for the new Location & Commerce business for the rest of 2011.