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Nokia Buys Navteq for $8.1 Billion
mytrip writes to mention that Nokia has agreed to buy Navteq, Chicago-based maker of digital mapping and navigational software, for $8.1 billion. "Nokia's president and chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, said that location-based services were a cornerstone of Nokia's Internet services strategy, which is part of an overall plan to expand beyond the production of cellphones into user services like photos, video, music and games."
This raises some interesting possibilities for where nokia's going with the next installment in their line of internet tablets (the Nokia 770/800/rumored successor to both). Navteq's software already runs on the platform, so it may be that nokia's thinking of integrating it more fully into their internet tablets (the next one is rumored to have built-in GPS).
No. But it may make a future acquisition by Google more attractive.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I have a Nokia 6682. I bought a bluetooth GPS receiver for $60 and downloaded Route 66 (for "free") on it and it has been a fantastic GPS device for me. I would never drive without such a phone anymore. I actually like it more than any dedicated GPS device which for a decent one could easily take $500 as mounting a normal GPS would be a pain (and too easy to attract thieves to break your window and take it). With a cell phone based GPS, it's easily attached to the vent (holder included with the receiver), and really portable.
If Nokia provides gps software out of the box, it definitely will be the biggest factor for my purchase decision.
Although I'm sure you were joking when you said "cash", here's an idea of how that much cash would look.
;(
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2008189,00.html
Considering that this is 2/3 as much ($8bn vs $12bn) you could scale down and say that if this were presented as packages of $100 bills, it would weigh approximately (363*2/3) = 242 tons.
It's somewhat annoying to measure cash in "tons of $100 bills" and to think that none of it going to me
Am I surprised that someone bought them? No. But I had expected more than a $0.03 premium!! This whole deal stinks of insider collusion, and I for one intend to vote 'No' on this acquisition with my shares.
So explain to me exactly why I should be patting myself on the back? If I wanted to sell at $78, I could have sold it at market price on Friday for that. I and every other shareholder just took it up the butt from the Board of Directors.
A significant number of GPS systems that run on phones that compete with Nokia use Navteq maps. Could or would Nokia stop licensing Navteq maps to non-Nokia phones? I find this troubling.
Highly doubtful. Check out Nokia's stock ticker ... just the value of Nokia's stock is 98% of Google's stock, not to mention Nokia holds a lot more **physical** assets than Google. Similar cash-at-hand, much more revenue per year. If Google would want to make a purchase of Nokia (Nokia being a healthy company), they would have to up the ante and offer the stockholders **more** than the company is worth. Sure, they can take out a loan, but they would essentially run the company dry. The interest on a few hundred billion dollars (Nokia's stock alone is worth 120B, Google's cash-at-hand is less than a tenth of that) a year would be billions of dollars a year. Google can't afford that. To put it another way, their revenue last year was 13B. The interest on a loan for Nokia would probably run a third to half that.