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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."
Nokia already said that they won't sell their smartphone division several hours ago. Why is this rumor still echoed on slashdot?
This story has been photoshopped. You can tell by the pixels and the smoke coming out of the track.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
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 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.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
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.
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
Slashdot would be much more pleasant if all the headlines that end in question marks were removed.
If this were to happen, what about QT?
The phone division i don't think anyone cares about at this point. I didn't even know there still was one :). But we would NOT want QT to fall into the wrong hands.
But if this is BS like it seems to be.. then who cares.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm not laughing.. but Microsoft is still a joke. First they pre-announce a super smart phone a year before it's said to be out and now they are trying to buy their way into the smartphone market from another company that can't compete with Apple. How many phones have they already tried to launch that all failed miserably? Yea.. good luck with that. I'm sure the next phone venture will be worth every penny.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
Nokia's strong point (or given their performance lately, least weak point) is very much in their mobile phone business. If you look at their latest quarterly earnings, the net sale of mobile phones decreased (-14% from last) significantly less than their smart phones (-39% from last). On top of that, their smartphone sales dropped significantly in NA since last year, presumably because of the competition in the market and their lack of a real offering lately.
Furthermore, it's pretty clear (as in their only choice at the moment) that they will use Windows Phone as their only smartphone platform and are dropping any commitments to any alternatives they had on the shelf. There is a good chance they will make deep system changes in their ROMs to enhance the experience as well, further enveloping their relationship with them. I doubt they will commit to Android sometime down the line, since (a) Elop has obvious ties with MS and (b) it will be way more work for them to "Nokia"-ize the UI to make it appealing to people like every other manufacturer did.
So what if they sold that division to Microsoft? Their bread-and-butter won't change and won't be influenced by the move. Microsoft won't build any devices; if anything, they will have an easier hand in making sure the hardware gels perfectly with Windows Phone to make the experience as awesome as possible. Both companies would be better positioned to compete with Apple and Android since they will be able to use them as the "Nexus" of Windows Phone and, if they don't step on Nokia's toes, provide an awesome experience that neither company can match AND have manufacturer variety that gives people just enough choice to be appealing without being overwhelming. It's a win-win, though I'm probably being naive and overly simplistic.
I know the news is fake, but I'm really excited about this collaboration. I love Nokia and I think this will finally make them relevant again if they don't let Microsoft run the hardware design show too much. They already did the right thing by setting a tight hardware baseline; Nokia can handle the rest.
They became M$'s bitch the moment they hired an ex-M$ CEO. The only surprise here is why did it take so long?
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.
That really was the next logical step. They've already ruined any hopes of Nokia ever getting back into the game with their mole who turned them on windows mobile as the OS of choice, now taking official control of the mobile arm of Nokia really is nothing new, it's just going the whole nine yards.
Most likely future: MS will pour a couple billions into it, like they did with the xbox, bleeding money quarter after quarter. They will be waiting (and bleeding money) until their competitors make a blunder (like Sony did with the PS3) and then stand ready to take over market share with their 2nd rate product simply because it's there and it has marketing muscle. They will probably buy up a couple App providers along the way and make them windows-mobile-exclusive (hello, Bungie).
Why? Because Balmer has no vision and isn't the guy to come up with anything resembling a new strategy. We will see what we've seen them do virtually everywhere else.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
How to acquire a company:
1. Send one of your own executives to be target companies CEO .. loss!)
2. Target company's new CEO implements total dependency on your companies product
3. Target company's share price collapses as they lose market share
4. Acquire target company for cheap
5. Profit! (though possibly in this case