Nokia Siemens To Buy Motorola Unit For $1.2B

sylverboss writes with news that Nokia Siemens is buying Motorola's wireless networks division for $1.2 billion. "The deal gives Nokia — the world's leading supplier of mobile handsets — an invigorated entrance to the US market where it has lagged far behind other handset suppliers." According to BusinessWeek, "Motorola’s sale of the wireless-network unit prepares it for a broader restructuring. The company is planning to spin off its mobile-phone and set-top box operations into a company that will be led by co-Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jha. The spinoff is on schedule for the first quarter, Jha said last month."

Comments

Network infrastructure, not handsets

[Tancred]

Note that this has nothing to do with either Nokia or Motorola phones themselves, but the network infrastructure business. There are a lot of pieces between the handsets such as antennas, switches, media gateways, routers, etc. That's the part that's being acquired by Nokia Siemens Networks (not Nokia proper, the handset manufacturer).

Re:Network infrastructure, not handsets

[flosofl]

So they'll be a 2-way radio and checkout counter gear company by this time next year?

And enterprise WiFi and Wireless IPS/IDS devices. Oh, and managed services for the WiFi and IPS/IDS. Basically, anything that was in the Enterprise Mobility Solutions (the *only* profitable division by a long, long shot).

Basically:
Networking (LTE, GSM, iDEN, etc...) sold to Nokia Siemens
Mobility (phones and consumer products) spun off into Motorola Mobility
EMS (public safety, Symbol products, AireDefense, RFS switches, etc...) re-branded as Motorola Solutions

Re:Network infrastructure, not handsets

[stupid_is]

A customer in this context is a network operator - like Verizon. There are a few biggies that Motorola has (Verizon - CDMA, CMCC - GSM, Zain - GSM) and there are lots of small ones. The small ones will spend a few mill on network equipment, the biggies will spend a few hundred mill

Motorola keeps all their phones

[Tancred]

This deal is only about network infrastructure, not handsets.

Must regret underbidding on Nortel CDMA.

[guidryp]

NSN were the stalking horse on Nortel CDMA/LTE infrastructure bidding, that Ericsson won for just over a billion.

Nortel had a larger CDMA (major piece NSN is missing) market share than Motorola, so now it looks like they paid more for less.

Something's wrong

[bobwrit]

(another article on the sale/breakup: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g3CNyGettVebplcruc9y1CPA9amwD9H2CL2G0) So, Motorola had to break up due to losses. Yeah, there is probably accounting fee's and the cost of the infrastructure that they sold off, but, they should have enough profit to counter those looses from their phone mfg dept. I mean, look at the phones that they've released recently, Droid and Droid X specifically. The profits should off set, unless they didn't maintain their infrastructure correctly(what I suspect happened). Have fun with with poor hardware, Nokia...