"Microsoft needs our patents to extort more money from Android makers, but buying Nokia would irk their few OEMs. We need to make Nokia fail while it remains closely aligned to Microsoft so they will be in a privileged position to acquire our portfolio"
:-) I'm no telepath, but you assume Elop's best interest is a thriving Nokia. I am quite sure he'll make up for his lost performance bonuses in other, maybe less direct, ways.
Do you even know what a board of directors is and what it can do and does? Do you know much power over the company the chairman of the board has? Look at the profile of the chairman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila
Insinuating that Elop is taking a bribe to drive down Nokia is just conspiracy mongering with no basis in reality.
What about the decisions after he became CEO? You think they were not done with the support of the board? Look what happened to Leo Apothekar, the board found a replacement for him within a month of him taking questionable decisions.
It seems very likely that Nokia wanted a partnership with Microsoft even before Elop was hired. Why else would they hire someone from outside Finland?
I'm amazed at how common this sentiment is. Turning a company around takes time. It's likely Nokia would be in the same boat as RIM if they would've stuck to their same path (ie. without much hope). However there's massive potential with this new plan for Nokia [if] WP7 succeeds (which IMO is fairly likely looking at current trends and quality of product). However again, it just depends on WP7 succeeding, (which Nokia is trying their hardest to make a reality).