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Microsoft In Talks To Buy Nokia's Smartphone Division?
lightbox32 writes "Analyst Eldar Murtazin announced today that Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer was soon to meet his Nokia counterpart Stephen Elop to finalize the purchase of Nokia's smartphone division, which would see patents, staff, and some plants transferred to Microsoft, for an undisclosed price. From the article: '“Steve Ballmer, Andy Lees and Stephen Elop and Kai Ostamo will meet in Las Vegas to finalize agreement about Nokia smartphone unit. Bye Nokia,” he tweeted on Thursday morning."
Because companies deny everything up until it happens.
Because that's what Slashdot is for. A lie is set forth and geeks who think they know stuff yammer on about it for about 500 comments. Stories like this are practically a slashdot lubricant.
Go tell your OEMs that you are not a competitor? Gee, that will really make them want to leave Android for Windows Phone Mango. lol
Go look up OS/2 would be my advice. OS/2 beat the crap out of Windows 3.1 and even Windows 95. No OEM would touch it as IBM was a competitor.
http://saveie6.com/
They will keep denying that rumor... If they accept it, it will be a huge PR disaster...
Here's hoping such a deal (if it's not just a rumor and actually goes through) doesn't touch Qt. I was happy when Nokia bought it, but I really, really don't want MS to get control over Qt.
I guess it comes down to corporate structure. Is Qt part of the smartphone division? The two are closely related (and it's why Nokia bought Qt to begin with), so I wouldn't be surprised.
Because no company has ever denied something right up until it happened, right?
Nokia denying it means absolutely nothing.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Is there any point in posting an unsubstantiated rumour by someone who has previously claimed that the deal was happening back in May and that Nokia's phone division would be sold by the end of 2011? Nokia is predominantly a phone maker, and I really can't see them wanting to sell the main business of their company to anyone. What would be left of the company?
And would Microsoft really want to spend the claimed $19 billion on a division that has yet to prove that anybody wants to buy one of their Windows phones? And Nokia have the connections with the carriers that is required to get the phones into the retail system. Given the way Windows phones haven't really been pushed by the carriers, I would think that they need the sales team at Nokia. Buying the patents and manufacturing plants only solves part of the problem - and that assumes that there is a problem in the first place that requires the purchase.
Finally, I don't think the other phone companies like HTC, LG, and Samsung would feel happy about Microsoft moving into their territory. This sale would only cause friction with those companies, is an expensive risk, and provides no benefit considering that Nokia are already committed to selling Microsoft's platform now.
I thought they already "bought" Nokia by having their cuckoo-CEO Stephen Elop installed as chief ramrod and bottle washer.
Could this mean that Microsoft isn't sure that Elop is going to stick around and that the board might get rid of him? Oh that would be fun to watch.
--
BMO
They really do want to be Apple don't they. :)
First the Microsoft stores, emulating (Badly) the Apple stores.
Now jumping into the phone business.
At least it is entertaining to watch.
Nah Microsoft wants to be everything, not just Apple. It became clear to me once I saw that in SharePoint there is a button "I Like It". (And as usual it's big, annoyingly friendly and takes a lot of screen real estate).
lucm, indeed.
And would Microsoft really want to spend the claimed $19 billion [businessinsider.com] on a division that has yet to prove that anybody wants to buy one of their Windows phones?
Just to add to this point: Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for Skype, a company that has never made a profit, and is not expected to any time soon. These kind of purchases are strategic, and aim to expand market share indirectly by forming synergies between different products; they don't have to be directly profitable in the short-term.
Nokia's business has, and always has been, to advance mobile phone technologies through hardware innovation. Selling their smart phone business would be bit like selling your left arm.
More like a selling the head and I wouldn't be surprised if they really do it.
Stephen Elop did the *great* job as a M$ mole and he gave Nokia on a silver platter. Smartphones will be rebranded as M$ phones and Nokia brand will be sold to some Chinese manufacturer.
In love, war and slashdot discussions, everything is allowed.
Nokia already said that they won't sell their smartphone division several hours ago...
Why would Microsoft buy it when they already got it for free?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
"Nokia already said that they won't sell their smartphone division"
Yet.
Come on, the whole Nokia thing has been a done deal since Elop as their new CEO was announced.
It's clearly been planned all along, that if the major shareholders let Elop become head of Nokia as a Microsoft puppet, and turn it into a Microsoft only shop, and make a success of it, that Microsoft will then at some later date when Nokia is fully turned around as a Windows Phone producer buy the shares.
The whole Elop thing didn't make sense whatsoever, when he was taken on it was obvious Android was the best bet for Nokia, yet they took someone on with disturbingly close ties to Microsoft, they let him choose Windows Phone when there was no evidence it was going to be a success despite the fact Android was already succeding and could've saved Nokia too. The only argument was that Nokia couldn't differentiate with Android, but it's bollocks - Samsung most certainly has managed to.
Really, the only explanation for the shareholders allowing such an insanely weird set of choices to go through is that they were going to get something out of it. Promises of an eventual Microsoft buyout would be the most obvious something - it's the only way many of them would ever see their money back on their investment after Nokia lost it's way and share values plummeted. Chances are they'll still get to keep their shares in Nokia's networks business when the sale is split on top.
Elop's takeover of Nokia was a coup by Microsoft, that much was obvious. Even at the time I assumed and said there's a high likelihood it would lead to eventual takeover. This leaking of the story and subsequent denial could just as well be a tactic by the two companies to test the water on public and business opinion and see if it's safe to go ahead and do it yet.
Sure there's a number of ways it may not happen - regulators saying no, opinion being far too negative to make it feasible, Nokia still failing to turn itself around and so on, but I'd wager the basic premise of the story has some truth to it - that there is intention by Microsoft to take it over, and will from the shareholders to let it be taken over by Microsoft. If there wasn't some degree of this they wouldn't have let it go so foolishly and riskily down the completely untested Windows Phone route in the first place when the slightly less risky option of investing in improving MeeGo was there, or perhaps more obviously, the perfectly safe Android was sat in waiting.