This morning the Finnish mobile phone giant tapped Rick Simonson, currently its chief financial officer, as head of its handset division. And the company named Timo Ihamuotila, currently global head of sales, CFO.

While Simonson’s move from CFO to head of Nokia’s mobile phone business might seem a bit odd, analysts say it could be just what the company needs. “Simonson has been in the business for years,” Swedbank Securities analyst Jan Ihrfelt told Forbes. “He knows the company quite well, has the financial skills and the skills of a good communicator to make people in the company excited about new goals.”

And that’s clearly something Nokia (NOK) needs. For while the company is holding its ground in the broader mobile phone business, it’s losing it in smart phones, the fastest-growing segment of the market. As I noted yesterday, Nokia’s share of the smart-phone market slipped to 35 percent from 41 percent in its latest quarter, a grim reminder of just how poorly the company’s flagship smart phones are faring in their battle with iPhone maker Apple (AAPL) and BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIMM).

Said Ihrfelt: “Nokia hasn’t been as quick as others in catching up with trends in the market and in bringing phones to consumers. One would expect a player the size of Nokia to have a product that competes with the iPhone, but that hasn’t been the case.”

Not yet, anyway. But that may soon change. A few weeks back, Nokia hired John Martin, former vice president of iPhone and Mac Internet Services at Apple to oversee development of new devices based on its Maemo platform.

“The compensation committee recognizes that Mr. Ellison has a significant equity interest in Oracle, but believes he should still receive annual compensation because Mr. Ellison plays an active and vital role in our operations, strategy and growth,” Oracle said in the filing. “Nevertheless, during fiscal 2010, Mr. Ellison agreed to decrease his annual salary to $1.”

A wise gesture from Ellison, who took a bit of flak at Oracle’s annual meeting last October after he made $543.8 million by exercising 36 million stock options. But still, a gesture only. Ellison is the fourth wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes. He is also Oracle’s largest shareholder, with 23.4 percent of stock outstanding, as of July 21. That stake is valued at more than $25 billion today.

So as long as Oracle (ORCL) continues to outperform the market, Larry will be just fine.

Looks like he was right.

LogMeIn became the fourth venture-backed IPO of 2009 this morning, hitting the markets with an offering that raised $107 million for the remote-services technology provider. Priced at $16 each, the high end of the stock’s IPO price range, LogMeIn (LOGM) shares spiked more than 30 percent to $20.90 shortly after the company made its public debut.

Great news for LogMeIn, which filed to go public in January 2008, only to see its prospects for doing so trashed by the econalypse. Great news as well for venture-backed companies hoping to go public. “The IPO window has cracked open a bit,’’ Emily Mendell, vice president of strategic affairs for the National Venture Capital Association told the Boston Globe. “I think the market has become slightly more stable.’’

It would certainly appear that way. Shares of SolarWinds (SWI), a network-management software outfit, are up 24 percent since their debut, and online restaurant-reservation service OpenTable’s (OPEN) shares have soared 52 percent since they began trading in May.

Clearly, we’re seeing something of an awakening in the moribund IPO market, although whether it will continue is anyone’s guess. “I think this is a temporary market window,” David Liu, a managing director at Jefferies & Co., told Forbes. “The economy is still screwed up….We’re telling our clients, if you can get on file and do something quickly, go ahead and do it now so you’re not caught flat-footed.”

Interesting. So, given the continuing volution of the financial crisis, can we expect further budget adjustments in the future? McDonald doesn’t think so. “CIOs gave us every indication that the budgets they have now are the budgets they will have for the rest of the year,” he said. “The number who have a contingency plan is only about half, and most of those CIOs don’t believe they’re going to have to execute those contingency plans….Of the CIOs we surveyed, 38% expect to see a recovery by September 2010, and another 32% expect a recovery by March of 2010. Only 24% said it would be beyond September 2010.”

“In the end, in attempting to ‘do no evil,’ Google has done exactly that. I say this not just as someone running a content site but also as an end user. If this inequity of support continues along these lines, we will see a continuing destruction of our journalistic enterprises–enterprises that are one of the core building blocks of our democracy. Last year, while addressing the magazine publishers and editors of the MPA at the Google Campus, Eric Schmidt suggested that the Web was a ‘cesspool’ and that it was up to the major journalistic brands to clean it up. Well, Eric, in a great many ways, Google has helped to create that cesspool, and as such I would hope that it can be part of the solution.”

– Forbes CEO Jim Spanfeller

Among those who’ve suffered grotesque losses: Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates, who ranks first on the Forbes list with an estimated net worth of $40 billion despite seeing his fortune decline by some $18 billion. Just behind him, in second place: Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett, who saw his net worth fall $25 billion to $37 billion. Finally, telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helu placed third, with $35 billion, down from $60 billion. Combined losses for the three: $68 billion.

“The world has become a wealth wasteland,” Forbes says in its report. “Like the rest of us, the richest people in the world have endured a financial disaster over the past year.”

If seeing your personal fortune slip to $40 billion from $58 billion is disaster, it’s one I think most of us would happily endure.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates may be wealthier than you or I, but he’s not wealthier than Warren Buffett. The Berkshire Hathaway boss has overtaken Gates as the world’s wealthiest man.

According to Forbes, Buffett is worth $62 billion. Gates is worth just $58 billion, which puts him in third place on the publication’s billionaires list behind Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú (but 782 billionaires ahead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg–YAY!). Interestingly, Gates might have remained richest man in the world had Microsoft not made its hostile bid for Yahoo. (Damn you, Jerry Yang.)

Anyway … for Gates, who’s never really been comfortable with his ranking in Forbes’s annual encomium to obscene wealth, this is likely a welcome dethronement. Asked once if he would be upset if someday he were no longer the world’s richest man, Gates replied, “I wish I wasn’t. There’s nothing good that comes out of that. You get more visibility as a result of it.”

Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo.”

Attack of the Blogs, Daniel Lyons, Forbes, 11.14.05

Hey, don’t forget Forbes …

The year-long guessing game is over. New York Times reporter Brad Stone has outed Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine, as the author of the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, the satirical blog lampooning Apple’s iconic CEO (See? Told you it wasn’t me).

“Well it had to happen,” Lyons wrote in a Sunday post to the blog. “Honestly I can’t believe it’s taken this long. But as you may have heard, I’ve been busted by a newspaper reporter. My cover has been blown. Guy named Brad Stone, who works for the New York Times. Have you heard of him? Well, tip of the hat to you, Brad Stone. You did the sleuthing. You put the pieces of the puzzle together. You went through my trash, hacked into my computer, and put listening devices in my home. Now you’ve ruined the mystery of Fake Steve, robbing thousands of people around the world of their sense of childlike wonder. Hope you feel good about yourself, you mangina. … Apple faithful, here in our darkest hour I know what you’re thinking: What’s next for FSJ? Well, I’m taking a few days off to sit in a lake and do some yoga and meditation and non-thinking. Then I’m coming back next week, badder than ever, with a new sponsor — my homeboys at Forbes.com.”

FSJ brought to you by Forbes?

Seems it’s not Apple that’s jumped the shark, as Forbes recently suggested, but its fake founder.