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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/
Microsoft was in the phone business before Apple, albeit only from the software side. Microsoft missed some huge, huge opportunities in that arena. If only they could've ditched the stylus-centric GUI design (ie itty bitty tiny controls and no gestures) they could've held at least some ground with Windows Mobile.
Better known as 318230.
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.
> If only they could've ditched the stylus-centric GUI design (ie itty bitty tiny controls and no gestures)
That's right on the money, (from an ergonomic standpoint, how did anyone ever think a "start" button an eighth of an inch wide was a good idea?? [1]) although I'm not sure it's a complete explanation. My Windows 6 phone would fail periodically with a popup something like "the audio driver has encountered an unexpected error and will now terminate". If you didn't catch it when it happened and reboot the phone, on the next call the phone wouldn't ring.
Let's savor that for a moment.
The phone wouldn't RING!!
The second or third time I failed to get a call while on-call, due to the audio driver malfunctioning, I had to dump the phone or risk losing my job.
As a result, I will never, ever, EVER have another Windows phone. In my line of work it's just too risky to have a phone that may at some random time decline to RING.
Ok, so I could be the only one to ever have that problem or problems like it, but if not, Windows 7 has a huge uphill battle to gain acceptance in the business market.
[1] From a code reuse standpoint, it makes perfect sense.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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.
You are definitely not the only person to have that happen to them; I had the exact same issue, and made the exact same decision, including the promise to never buy a Windows Mobile product again.
I also had the fun error that my Windows phone would randomly end calls. I would be happily chatting away and the phone would just hang up. I would joke "Windows has found your conversation tiresome and no longer wishes to continue," (said in a German accent).
Try explaining to your boss why you almost never pick up when he calls, and then when he does call you, you hang up on him.
Windows Mobile was far and away the worst phone experience I have ever had, and it soured me on Windows phone products forever.
> Try explaining to your boss why you almost never pick up when he calls, and then when he does call you, you hang up on him.
The very last call I (didn't) receive was from my boss, strategic update during a production outage. And I missed it. The next business day, I put in an order for a Blackberry Bold. My boss couldn't approve it fast enough. (He needs me to be connected.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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.
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