Nokia Boss: We're Staying Put in Finland

Nokia has struggled of late to keep up in a handset market increasingly dominated by Apple's iPhone and smartphones running Google's Android mobile operating system, prompting speculation that the company may abandon its headquarters in Finland to set up shop in the United States.

Not so fast, says Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who told Finnish television Sunday that the company will remain in the Helsinki suburb of Espoo for the long haul, according to Reuters.

"As long as I am the CEO the headquarters is in Espoo," Elop told Finnish national broadcaster YLE, according to the news agency. "That's our home, our sense of belonging."

Elop, the first non-Finn to helm Nokia, has handed out thousands of pink slips to Nokia's Finnish employees since taking over in September 2010 as part of a massive effort to reverse the company's flagging fortunes. This year, the embattled company has been the subject of acquisition rumors alongside other struggling mobile device makers like Motorola, which has sold its Motorola Mobility business to Google, and Research in Motion, which has been under pressure from influential investors to either change leadership or put itself up for sale.

Nokia's CEO also has a Microsoft connection—Elop was president of the software giant's Business Division before taking the top job at the handset maker. Just a few months after becoming CEO, Elop helped broker a deal with Microsoft to make Windows Phone 7 Nokia's primary OS platform, promising to continue stewardship of Nokia's own Symbian OS but essentially leaving its Symbian developer ecosystem with a large but shrinking platform.

Just over 10 months after announcing the Windows Phone transition, Nokia and T-Mobile introduced the first Nokia Windows Phone in the U.S., the Lumia 710, which is set to be followed to market by the higher profile Lumia 800. PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst got his hands on the Lumia 710 last week and reports that "Nokia used pretty classy materials for a $49-with-contract phone, although the 710 doesn't measure up to the Lumia 800's polycarbonate body."

Set to go on sale Jan. 11, the Lumia 710 sports a 1.4-Ghz processor, a 3.7-inch, 800-by-480 LCD screen, and runs Microsoft's Windows Phone Mango OS.