BrettMBell.com

AP – Nokia Corp. is replacing CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo with top Microsoft executive Stephen Elop as the world’s top handset maker aims to regain lost ground in the fiercely competitive smartphone market.

Nokia is replacing Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who proved unable to address the phone-maker’s loss of the smartphone crown in the last few years, with Stephen Elop, formerly of Microsoft Corp. Nokia has two main issues to address: a steep loss in earnings and a market share in leading edge mobiles that is being assaulted by iPhone/Android/RIM. Its share price is consequently taking a beating.

“My role as leader of Nokia is to lead this team through the period of change, take the organization through this period of disruption…to meet the needs of its customers, while delivering superior financial performance,” Mr. Elop said at a news conference in Helsinki, reports the WSJ.

Mr. Elop was formerly the head of Microsoft’s business division. He starts on September 21, at a tricky time – Nokia World (the firm’s annual talkfest London) is only next week so he will be unable to make a Steve-jobs-like entrance onto the stage and set a new tone for the organization.

With the advent of the iPad and the plethora of cheaper Android tablets that are due to flood the market over the coming months, there’s an increasingly popular theory in the tech industry: the days of the dedicated e-reader are numbered.

Last week we published the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media analysts that said as much. Sales of ‘smartbooks’ (a loosely defined term) are expected to grow from 3.65 million in 2010 to nearly 50 million in 2014, or over 50% of all embedded device sales. The losers will be dedicated e-readers, such as the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, and the winners, multifunctional portable devices like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The reasoning – and it’s convincing – is that e-book content is now available on most multifunctional devices like mobiles and tablets, and work well enough as book readers, while having other functions.

AP – U.S. Web surfers are spending more time socializing on Facebook than searching with Google, according to new data from researchers at comScore Inc.