Is the fire finally out on Nokia’s “burning platform”? It is, if you believe the CEO.

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) chief Stephen Elop, whose infamous burning platform memo was leaked last February, was singing a new tune in a recent interview in the South African newspaper Business Day. The full story is available here, but Elop offered two notable quotes, saying, “That (burning platform state) was the position more than one year ago and a lot has changed since then,” and “I sat down to write the memo as a call for action and, a year later, everyone in the company says Nokia is changing.”

Nokia’s problems are well known. A lack of hit products caused the company’s market share to plunge from 28% in 2010 to 13% in 2011, at the same time as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Samsung (PINK:SSNLF) boosted their market share from a combined 27% in 2010 to 48% a year later. With all other companies in the sector losing 6% combined (from 45% to 39%), clearly the bulk of Apple and Samsung’s surging popularity came at the hands of Nokia.

While these numbers show Nokia certainly continues to face more than its share of challenges, shares of the Finnish handset giant — which have been in a downtrend since late 2007 — finally might be worth a look again. With investor expectations already so depressed, Nokia has the benefit of an exceptionally low bar. Even a sign that the company is merely stabilizing its market share at current levels likely would provide some decent upside in the stock.

One reason this might be so is valuation. Nokia trades at $5.10 per share, but with $2.16 per share of net cash on its balance sheet. This values the business itself at $2.94 per share, for a total value of $10.8 billion. This compares to last year’s reported revenues of over $50 billion and consensus expectations for $49.1 billion in 2012. NOK shares trade at their lowest price-to-sales ratio in history as a result. In addition, the mean analyst price target on NOK is $6.37, about 25% above Monday’s close.

Nokia price-to-sales, 10-year history

Nokia price-to-book

Click to Enlarge Another reason to like Nokia is the chart. The stock is moving sideways through an extended base, with its 200-day moving average and a two-year trendline converging in the $6-$6.10 range.

While the stock still has a long way to go to cross these boundaries, both resistance levels are falling quickly. A few more months of sideways to slightly positive movement will therefore put NOK in a favorable technical position.

The Catalyst?

For a stock that has been in the dumps for so long, what catalyst could there be for a revival? One possible answer could be its newest smartphone, the Lumia 900, which is scheduled to launch in the United States on March 18 for $99. Elop is looking to achieve differentiation from Apple and Samsung through both its design and its applications, and based on some earlier reviews, the company may have achieved its goal:

In its review earlier this month, T3.com had this to say:

“Windows Phone truly arrived with the Nokia Lumia 800, and the new, larger and significantly 4G-enabled Nokia Lumia 900 is another step in the right direction for both companies. Both Nokia and Windows Phone are totally viable alternatives to the dominance of Android and iOS offering great hardware design and a well-on-the-way-to-being-great operating system.”

For its part, Computer Weekly offered this take:

“Nokia (has) stuck to what they’re good at and what consumers have come to love about their phones. Good camera, solid build and a good battery. What they’ve added is an operating system that finally brings Nokia into the modern era pulling them away from the painful Symbian OS.

“Microsoft and Nokia are growing together and getting stronger together. The last Nokia phone I had was the N97 which has scarred me in so many ways but the Lumia 900 is so nice and so good that I’m tempted to give it a go and I think that says a lot, it’s certainly something I wasn’t expecting.”

All of this casts a favorable light on Elop’s goal of establishing a three-player market that includes Nokia as a viable competitor to Apple and Samsung. In an interview conducted in late January, Elop offered this insight into his thinking: “A year from now, I want the story to be a bit more about, OK, this third ecosystem, it’s in play, this is happening. There will be a big raging debate about it, but having a more balanced perspective that there is a third contender that clearly is in the game.”

The bottom line: Given the low expectations and beaten-up valuation of Nokia shares, a successful execution of this third-way strategy would likely be more than sufficient to lift the stock out of the doldrums. At the very least, NOK offers a 3.7% dividend for investors with the patience to let this story play out. After four years of underperformance, it finally might be time to give Nokia another look.

As of this writing, Daniel Putnam did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.