Elop's memo compared the company’s situation to that of a man on a burning oil platform who decides to jump into the cold sea in order to save himself. Nokia's current situation is that of a man standing on a burning platform, and the company's actions have even poured petrol onto the fire, according to Elop.

The company must now take drastic action to save itself, and that could well involve metaphorically jumping into the cold sea.

Carolina Milanesi, Research Vice President at IT analysts Gartner, told YLE that Elop is under pressure to announce something big, partly because of the language used in the memo and partly because he needs to change the industry's mindset.

According to her, a partnership with another firm – such as a co-operation agreement with Microsoft involving their Windows Phone 7 operating system, or a switch to Google's Android platform – might not be enough to reassure investors.

In his memo, Elop reminded Nokia staff that Android only entered the market two years ago, and said its success was ’unbelievable’.

He went on to say that mobile communications was no longer a battle of devices, but of ”ecosystems” encompassing developers, applications, “developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things”, and that Nokia had to decide how to “build, catalyse or join an ecosystem”.