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Official: Microsoft To Acquire Nokia Devices and Services Business
Many submitted, and symbolset emailed me to wake up, sending this bit of interesting news out of Redmond: "Microsoft Corporation and Nokia Corporation today announced that the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia's Devices & Services business, license Nokia's patents, and license and use Nokia's mapping services. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will pay EUR 3.79 billion to purchase substantially all of Nokia's Devices & Services business, and EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia's patents, for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash. Microsoft will draw upon its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to approval by Nokia's shareholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions."
And, yep, Elop is part of the deal (quoting Ballmer): "Stephen Elop will be coming back to Microsoft, and he will lead an expanded Devices team, which includes all of our current Devices and Studios work and most of the teams coming over from Nokia, reporting to me."
A classic Trojan horse manouver pulled off in style by Steven Elop. Now he can go back to Redmond, where they'll hold a Triumph in his honor.
Microsoft CEO's email to staff on Nokia acquisition
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I was hoping Steven Elop would go to sink MS into the ground as CEO, and anticipating Nokia being free to build a nice Android phone. Guess it will never happen.
Welcome back
So, Nokia will become a network infra company, with hefty cash reserves and some nice patent licensing revenue. Oh, and then there's the location business, essentially competing with Google, but... good luck with that.
But all the (remaining) Nokia fans, start to look for a new phone brand!
How many will choose Microsoft?
I have a suspicion about what happens to Windows Phone sales, everywhere except the US maybe. And low end Lumias like 520 were doing pretty good... Sad.
So Elop left Microsoft to head up Nokia, where he made supposedly very idiotic changes that had the effect of destroying Nokia's share price. Microsoft then buys Nokia at a fraction of the cost it would otherwise have been, and Elop returns to a prestigious role at Microsoft, where he's in with a shot at the CEO role.
That doesn't look the slightest bit dodgy at all.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Perhaps they are looking for the Nokia 3310 indestructibility features to put on Windows.
Suddenly, the big money is being earned from hardware (a reversal of the PC industry, where hardware companies slugged it out for razor thin margins and software makers raked in billions). Both Google and Microsoft recently purchased established phone hardware manufacturers. While many hypothesized that they did it to compete with Apple, I think they did it to combat the threat from companies like Samsung, LG and HTC. If you look at Apple's sales figures, the reason is crystal clear: the iPhone is both their highest margin and most profitable product. There is no point in Google and Microsoft doing all the hard work to build and maintain a mobile operating system only to have companies like Samsung walk away with tens of billions of dollars in profit from premium handset sales each quarter. Google, Apple and Microsoft want to dominate the flagship handset market with a handful of must-have devices each year, forcing Korean and Taiwanese companies into the low end.
Hopefully some Institution will show that buyout the red card. I was obvious that Elop was destroying Nokia for a cheaper buyout by Microsoft. Some People really should go to Jail this time.
I'm Swedish and not Finnish but this still makes me feel sad. I've owned many Nokia phones through the years. My first few phones, the iconic 3310 and and recently an N900 were Nokias. I've suspected this would happen since the post-Maemo fiasco and MS boss debacle, but this marks the definitive end of an era. Oh well... Life moves on.
Microsoft succeeded in its strategy to take-down and take-over a major phone rival. First plant a CEO to destroy the company and lower its shares.... wait... and take over the company. What is left of Nokia is not likely to survive as they all had synergies with the devices unit, which will be taken-over by Microsoft.
Clearly, Nokia had problems when Elop took over... but he destroyed any potential Nokia had left (think N9/MeeGo). And now he gutted the company even further and will take the devices unit with him as a rejoins the Microsoft family he was clearly so fond of. The poor must have really missed his family.
...I keep trying but no matter how hard I work at it, no useful syllables are formed.
This probably encompasses the user experience of an MSNokia phone, so maybe that's apropos.
fifth sigma, inc.
24, 23, 21...
my understanding of this is that Nokia is now little more than a huge collection of patents worth supposedly truck loads of cash. Does this ring alarms for anyone else?
By this point Nokia was basically a Microsoft division anyway, just without the official ownership (though there was proxy ownership via Elop). This was going to happen soon or later. It's an interesting situation though - who would license Windows Phone now that it's seen as a loser in the market AND Microsoft would be competing with you?
With the strong influence Microsoft has on big corporation's IT (Exchange/Office/Outlook) it would not surprise me that within one or two we would see strongly integrated phones for those corporations. If they make some attractive, usefull and secure phones (Nokia WP are hardware wise very attractive...), Microsoft could wipe out Blackberry.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Microsoft has been paying Nokia $1B/year. As part of a much larger organization, it will be much easier to hide how much money Microsoft is dumping into Windows Phone, including support for marketing and selling handsets below cost.
Nokia handsets, meet XBox!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
If this happened to a major Australian company the Australian Federal government would have a big say in approving the purchase. Does Finland have similar laws?
what will be left of Nokia?
I worked at Nokia from 2011-2012. Everyone was saying then that the reason for Elop (who was otherwise so useless) was to devalue Nokia enough that it would be a good deal for Microsoft. And here we are... the other shoe drops. But there will be a third shoe when he becomes CEO of Microsoft. They deserve each other.
Let me get this straight...the same man, who single-handedly ended Nokia's push into open source software and at the same time drove Nokia into oblivion is coming to run Microsoft? That will work out well.
as crazy does.
I am certainly glad they sold off Qt first. If Microsoft got their hands on it the writing would be on the wall even in the face of pledges to KDE.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
the EU will let this happen?
I don't think so, and it does have major antitrust repercussions.
How I read the open letter:
"Nokia has an identity spanning 150 years of heritage, innovation, excellence, and change. That ends today. By this evening those 150 years will be a rumor. They never happened. Think about that. Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now, the young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history, and you are part of it..."
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Subject says it all.
Microsoft will now add a NSA backdoor into every Nokia phone.
Do you find it peculiar the Elop never sold his house in Redmond and his family didn't move to Finland though Stephen said hey would ? Can you avoid thinking of a conspiracy ?
Well, if Nokia isn't already backdoored, it will be as soon as MS gets their bloody little hands on it.
Count on it.
I mean, everybody and their mother could see his "moves" were suicidal, the only reason to not expect that he was destroying the company for MS to pick it up cheap was the sheer audacity of the fact...
As a side note, I finally switched to a Galaxy S3 from a Nokia N9 over half a year ago, due to the fact nobody was developing for the abandoned platform. However, in every other way (except screen size I guess) the N9 and Maemo/Meego was so superior to S3/Android that for about 2 months I was constantly on the verge of getting another N9. In retrospect, my favorite feature of the N9 was how multitasking and switching between apps worked. On Android and iOS, apart from the fact that it is much slower to switch between apps, I am never certain my apps have not exited in the background and will launch from scratch and you have to jump some serious UI hoops if you actually want to force an app to restart. N9's swipe interface was the thing closer to a full desktop - fast switching between active apps (a swipe and a tap), exiting vs minimizing app having the same UI cost (single swipe from different side) and apps not dying by themselves in the background (at least in the same usage pattern that in iOS and Android kills them).
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Not even the slightest hope of an update for my N810, then?
Given that Microsoft all but ensured that it would be an acquisition, Elop was the person who burnt the platform.
Shame that they took over Nokia and bastardized it to be an unremarkable Windows Phone platform.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
As Quoted from: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2010/sep10/09-09statement.aspx: (Archive mirror)
Microsoft Business Division Transition
Sept. 09, 2010
E-mail to Microsoft full-time employees from Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer.
Sept. 9, 2010
I am writing to let you know that Stephen Elop has been offered and has accepted the job as CEO of Nokia and will be leaving Microsoft, effective immediately. Stephen leaves in place a strong business and technical leadership team, including Chris Capossela, Kurt DelBene, Amy Hood and Kirill Tatarinov, all of whom will report to me for the interim.
The MBD business continues to grow and thrive, with 15 percent growth in the last quarter. It has been good to see the great response to Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, the growth of our Dynamics business and the way we have been successful in extending all our MBD products and services to the cloud. I appreciate the way that Stephen has been a good steward of the brand and business in his time here, and look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role at Nokia.
Please join me in wishing Stephen well.
Steve
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You break it, you buy it...
I guess that's Ballmer mopping up after himself before leaving I don't know what promises he made to Elop to make him drive Nokia to the ground, but given how disastrous the whole Microsoft/Nokia partnership has been I can certainly understand Elop insisting for completion before Ballmer is out.
Ballmer's successors would certainly not have bothered.
Send in a boarding party, drive down the price, get a lot of expensive people to walk the plank, buy the bits you want at a reduced price.
I think it hurts enough people that there should be laws against it. What do the free market libertarians think? Should a company that relies on government protection of copyrights for it's survival be able to do such an end run around governments when it feels like it?
I would be very curious to know if that was already discussed/planned (by Microsoft) when they allowed Nokia to become a 'premium' partner for using their Windows Phone OS a few years back
Corporate espionage at its finest!
Force/buy your shill in to the CEO position, drive down the stock price, then scoop up the company at a severe discount compared to what it would have cost a couple of years ago.
If you're paying attention, the consumer IT industry is consolidating along a 'vertical stack integration" strategy.
Check out my Microsoft column for "mobile hardware". :)
http://nodemy.jit.su/post/VerticalStack
Any alternate headlines? Here are some:
"Headless software company buys brainless phone company"
"Rumours of Dinosaur extinction greatly exaggerated (And their mating habits haven't changed)"
I'm sure there's more ...
Nokia should buy Jolla, and start new mobile operations from scratch or maybe BLU and create something that people would like to buy; new N9 or new Nokia Android phone
We can now totally forget about Nokia phones running Android or any other alternative OS - and no matter what people say or how much they dislike Windows Phone, Nokia's hardware is still excellent - it could have been a perfect match for Android, Firefox OS, Ubuntu OS, etc.
Depressing Inevitability
This was the only likely scenario once Elop tied Nokia to the MS mast and cut away the lifeboats. It was always going to be we sail together and we sink together.
In many ways Nokia has fulfilled their side of the bargain by generating some hardware which is as good as any phone out there. What has held them back is the OS, which despite having some good features is always lagging behind the iphone and android, and seems incapable of introducing the needed changes at the rate required in a consumer device.
In a perfect world, Nokia would take over responsibility of the MS mobile division and it would be left alone to force the changes that the engineers of Nokia know are required. However what is more likely is that Microsoft will smother the innovative culture in Nokia to make it more like itself, so that we will get a company more concerned about how Office runs on the phone than offering the best consumer experience. I also can't wait to see how the trolls of Helsinki react to their first stack ranking session.
What is confusing about this is the timing. Is this Ballmer's last hurrah or Elop's last desperate grab for power. If your CEO had just announced he would be leaving so would not be taking long term responsibility for such a decision, as a board wouldn't you say Whoa, maybe we will get the next guy in to look at this? Lets face it with Baller's acquisition track record it may be more profitable to take the billions of dollars, pile it the middle of Oulu and set fire to it....
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
If Microsoft had tried to buy Nokia before Elop, it would have been far too expensive. Sending Elop in to ruin the business so it can be bought for a song. Typical Microsoft. If I had Nokia stock I'd be really pissed.
First they installed "trojan horse" who drove still profitable company into ground and then bought for pennies what else.
Where are Finnish authorities? Do they have criminal police in Finland? This board of directors should be raided and thrown in jail.
I don't know if you have tried windows phone 8, but it's actually not a bad OS for a smartphone. There's a lot that can be said about marketing, consistency of APIs for developers, the app store and the apps MicroSoft includes with a purchase, but the OS itself is the least of the problem here. The real problem is the total package delivered to the consumer. The fact that there is now "one manufacturer less" that sells windows phone makes the windows phone ecosystem even smaller than it already was. Unless they will get their marketing and apps strategy together even less people will buy a windows phone than before.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
This is what they teach in law school. Typical criminal takeover. What a nerve!
I use a Note 2, and have a Lumia 520 in the family. The thing which shone about the 520 is that, at the low price point, the touch and feel experience of the phone was simple marvellous. Nokia makes brilliant stuff. All they needed was a better OS.
A Nokia phone with Android OS would have been the killer. Nokia still has a lot of goodwill, esp outside USA, and when you say Nokia people still Gush, and are willing to sacrifice on the OS front for the hardware. Now with M$, that is gone.
I expect sales to go down due to two reasons
1. Nokia is gone. The name is gone. Its M$ now
2. The groups will be managed by Microsoft, and we all know how M$ has fared in hardware device management.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Nokia was a tech giant. Not any more. Assimilated.
By the time they lost the edge with symbian, they were losing money on smart phones. They tried several things before eventually ending up using only windows. The real problem was that they couldn't get back in the black fast enough and they simply didn't have the funds left to continue their own development and try to reach profit again. Maybe they were selling hand sets at a higher price than it costed to produce them, but the development costs were way higher than the profits they made on the hardware. This is why the got stuck with windows and MicroSoft saw an opportunity to trojan them.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Since when was Nokia ever a "major rival" to MicroSoft?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Once you forget about what microsoft did, consider what nokia did: They received over 5 billion Euros and get to start again with a clean slate. Man what I wouldn't give to be in those shoes right now!
Expert CEOs.
This is how you do a "by the book" hostile takeover. The Nokia takeover engineered by Balmer with the help of Elop will feature in management manuals. Elop proved to be a skilled "saboteur agent" who decreased Nokia shares value with 85%, to prepare it to by bought at a very low price by his master Balmer, being able in the meantime to fool and scam the Nokia shareholder and Finish state authorities for several years. One has to admire the complete lack of conscience and love of money of this guy. I think he started the big business career by selling is mother :)
Windows Phones has hit 8% in Europe
http://slashdot.org/submission/2922559/windows-8-phone-reaches-82-in-europe
And looks like most of the people buying Windows Phones are first time smartphone users. So there is good news for Microsoft.
"...subject to approval by Nokia's shareholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions."
In my dreams, the shareholders revolt, backed by Finnish regulators and the Finnish people. Elop is ousted for being the trojan horse that he is. Nokia ditches Windows Phone to make smartphones running Android (at least to return to profitability in the short-term), Ubuntu Touch and/or Firefox OS.
I'd be very interested in a modern Nokia smartphone if it weren't running Windows Phone, and I know I'm not alone.
www.gaiageek.com
And Symbian was developed NOT because the phone makers wanted their own OS but because they had seen what happened to PC makers when they became OEM's and didn't want to become MS slaves.
Nokia lead the move that was "anything but MS", now it has been silenced. You can Samsung now attempting to break itself free from Android by continuing development of MeeGo.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Microsoft will now be effectively the sole supplier of Windows phones. Who is going to buy their operating system from a competitor, particularly when there is no exit strategy, such as having source code rights? This formally relegates windows phone to being a single vendor platform, which I suppose it was anyway, since Microsoft installed Elop at Microsoft, to crash its share price, ready for a takeover.
I can imagine that Nokia shareholders are not going to be happy with being robbed in this way. If I were a shareholder, I'd want this deal abandoned, and new management installed at Nokia. Nokia hardware is fine for a lower-mid range phone. It would only take maybe six to eight months to replace WP8 with Android, and make Nokia marketable once again.
The only windows phones I have ever seen, were in the bargain bin at supermarket, heavily discounted. Few people apparently like WP8. Staff say that WP8 phones have sky high return rates, and that the devices in bargain bins, aren't even returned devices - they are factory new.
For me, the simple fact is, that yesterday, the people in the 2 big divisions, phones and networks, were both working for company that was making a loss, and had an uncertain future. Today, both are working for a company that is making a profit and has a hefty cash reserve. Well, the future is still uncertain but generally I see this as a positive move. Though maybe you can guess which of those 2 mentioned parts of the company I work for.
I don't have to get out when I have wireless access points identifying the OS for me and logging it. Maybe none of those WP8 phones are not using wifi and rendering themselves invisible to such things but I really suspect it's just due to not many of them being around.
I'll bet Nokia had a lot more than one in twelve of the mobile market before they did a shift. Their sybian phones they still sold in China this year probably add up to more than that one in twelve worldwide.
Steve Ballmer email to Microsoft employees on Nokia Devices & Services acquisition
... worked great for BlackBerry.
What a great idea you have got there!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
if they think they will find a place in my mobile phone or tablet, they are loony.
(gosh, that is how long ago I replaced Windows95 with Slackware ... and never looked back).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Bollocks to it.
We just can't let this happen, it's almost a full blown disaster, the one ray of sunshine is the patent deal.
We need to find a way to buy Nokia out before this deal goes through.
Seriously?!
Microsoft gets a free pass for all the damage they did and gets a licence to all the Nokia patents that they know they cannot survive in mobile without?
For the price of the Nokia-Siemens buyout?
So Nokia shareholders are to sell their entire mobile business to the scumbags that ruined it for just enough money to own the rump end of their own business free and clear?
Screw that.
I'll offer the Nokia board $7.5B for 51% of the whole company, less any long term investors that want to assign their proxies to me, and I'll re-organize the whole company, turf out all the losers that have managed the company into the ground and spank the living crap out of the company that did this to them. The company that deliberately did this to them.
If Microsoft thinks those patents are worth so much, stick 'em under a GPL-like licence that lets anybody play in mobile so long as they share and tell Microsoft and Apple to go screw themselves.
I posted the following on Groklaw the day it died, in the desperate hope of getting some reasoned help. I was too late.
Looks like I might be too late again.
Stuff that for a game of soldiers, Slashdot might be full of loonies and Trolls but there are still some sane voices hidden amongst the noise.
Have at it.
----------
I've been working up to posting this for weeks.
I don't really want to post it now but I may never get another chance.
I'm not ready so the link will be to nowhere till at least tomorrow.
Apologies in advance for any offence but I won't take the chance that I miss the opportunity to reach members of the Groklaw community that I may never be in contact with again.
------
I'm hoping you guys will be able to help me out.
I've been silently standing on the sidelines here almost since the very beginning. I, like you, feel very deeply that what we have been watching happen here is an outrage.
Watching monopolies desperately trying to destroy the open-source world like a bunch of petulant toddlers makes me want to bang my fists and smash things with rage. (Yes I do see the irony there.)
I have, for a long time, felt powerless to do anything about it but I have come to a decision to make a stand.
The real problem is that we lack the sort of wealth and influence that the corporate elite possess. We are forced to contend with them on a battlefield of their choosing with little or no resources.
I think it is about time we stopped putting up with that and started fighting fire with fire.
If we want to win this war we need to acquire more money and influence than our opponents and, ludicrous as that idea seems on the surface, I don't think it's something that is beyond the realm of possibility.
You see the thing is that the businesses that we face here are either monopolists or practising outmoded models, they are desperately trying to hang on to a way of doing business that has been out-evolved. They look on the surface like the 800lb Gorillas but in reality they are more like Giant Pandas. They are tottering on the edge of extinction because they are too myopic to realize that their ecological niche has gone or that they are in the process of destroying it with their own stupid greed.
So here's what I plan to do and what I think I can achieve given a bit of help.
I plan to buy Nokia.
I think Nokia could easily be re-organized into a vastly profitable enterprise and its enormous collection of patents could be used to beat the snot out of the trolls and proprietary monopolists. I think a licensing scheme similar to the GPL could be created that forced everyone in the mobile space to 'share and share alike' and to compete on merit rather than in litigation.
I want to create something that is inherently, by
Trust The Computer, The Computer is your friend.
... they shall be known as Micronia!
Hello,
You may think the number of the beast is 666 and in fact the "death metal" music genre is quite popular in Finland and some finnish software companies appear to drop the number 666 in their code here and there.
Yet the real number of the beast is 158. The AGM-158 JASSM is a US-made stealth cruise missile, which the finnish really wanted to buy for their F-18 Hornet jetfighter-bombers, to scare their neighbouring Russia fecesless. The finnish tried to buy the JASSM twice but were rebaffled by US Congress arms export embargo both times. When they tried for the 3rd time, USA said they are willing to sell only if Nokia is handed over, so that USA gains control over much of the world's mobile handsets. (The NSA can eavesdrop on anything, but large costs are an issue if it has to be done via tradecraft, rather than via company official built-in backdoors.)
Now USA (more precisely their minion Microsoft Corp.) has Nokia under control and Finland shall have dozens of AGM-158 JASSM soon. The only question is, what are the export version JASSMs are worth for real? Likely they are trojaned "monkey edition" examples and cannot be targeted without US permit, so W. DC. can sell the finns to the Kremlin whenever profitable. Remember how all the US and israeli export wunder-waffe (anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles) of the georgian troops failed to fire when Russia invaded them. Tbilisi was sold out wholesale as Tel-Aviv traded secrets with Moscow, betraying their allies Georgia and Syria, respectively.
The same fate will await Finland. They sold their economy's crown jewel for mockup cruise missiles. Now Putin is only asking for a cup of coffee. Cue Katyusha music!
The major experience of a touch phone is the sensitity of touch. I have handled multiple phones running same version of android, with different touch sensitivity. 520 uses the "super touch or something" which allows it to be used with gloves, hence the extra sensitive touch. This is why we did not get the 620 even though its only slightly more expensive!
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I was working at Nokia at the time the Elop Trojan was installed, and the company had the writing on the wall even then.
The company had already spent 3 years trying to retrofit an iPhone UI into their Symbian smartphones, except using shitty hardware (resistive touchscreens etc), meanwhile trying to get Qt 5 / QML stable enough, alongside building Meego out of the ashes of Maemo and their tablet experiments from 2005, which was always a niche sideline. The company had ABSOLUTELY.NO.CLUE.
Although they had a few promising projects, they didn't have anything that could complete with iOS / Android in a reasonable timeframe before the company was toast anyway, so the offer from MS and the cash injection seemed like the only reasonable offer for the company. Anyone that thinks that Meego would have saved the company from laying off 90% of it's staff are completely misguided.
So you're saying they should market it as the "X-Phone" ?
How about "X-Bar" ( X-Box -> XBar )?
Would be a huge improvement over the windows phone... but then, as you say, what wouldn't.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2915925&cid=40323987
"Only Samsung and Apple make money from phones."
You missed the two mainland Chinese companies. Too lazy to Google for them right now but that would be two of the following: Lenovo, Huawei or ZTE. LG is probably still porfitable until they get steamrolled by yet another rising Chinese company.
so much for hope of them coming back. Another good one gone and won't be back for sure now.
MS buying anything is a death knell
A tale of folly and fury told by an utter madman..
Well, Nokia certainly isn't the first "partner" company Microsoft rapes and plunders. Their usual tactic with small companies was getting a good inside look at the technology while dangling a sack of cash in front of the owners, and then steal the technology and hire all the key workers, leaving the "partner" company as a gutted empty husk.
This time MS at least paid some token money for what they got.
It is hard to imagine that others smartphone makers will continue to make Windows phone after this.
Exiting times indeed! What will this mean for the feature phone market?
Microsoft will exit the phone business again in 12 months.
Suddenly, the big money is being earned from hardware.
That's like thinking that the big money is in steel when talking about pipelines. There is big money in the steel, but the big money is in the volatile substances going through, and in the control the ownership of the hardware gives over distribution of the software.
They're throwing good money after bad. Microsoft is like a dinosaur that used to make money crushing rocks but finds itself in a new world that requires hands and opposable thumbs.
I imagine that next it will become more difficult to share your data between Win8 & Android (for 'security' reasons), and enough consumers will ditch their laptop and just have a tablet and keep their data in the cloud that MS will be able to (try to) argue that their dominance with desktops and laptops is no longer important because the people stupid enough to need government protection from monopolistically engineered difficulty have moved on to tablets. Then, the small company with the patents starts lawsuits against everyone who isn't MS. So, MS ends up selling lots of phones to people who need for their phone to easily interoperate with computers at work (unless the system at work has moved to some Google designed "communicate via our cloud" service). Eventually, governments force MS to share a method for interoperating with the new security, but by then they'll have their reliable user base of people who had to learn the MS way and don't want to learn anything different.
I wonder what the first 'mPhone' will be like. If it' anything like the Lumia 920/928/1020 it should be GREAT. I've owned the 920 and now 928 and I love them both.
Ive seen the KIA cars.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The problem is... Elop doesn't have anyone to sell Microsoft to...
Attachmate is where old software goes to die.
You make it sound like Attachmate is evil and that is not fair.
Attachmate is like a retirement home, where the elderly go to live out their remaining days.
Microsoft is more like a serial killer, euthanizing the elderly.
Cool story bro.
Do you wish hire a ceo, or any kind of employee from usa?
If Microsoft is serious about the "devices and services" company shift that Ballmer has been touting (and it would seem so by this Nokia acquisition) then I believe the next move will be to acquire a PC business. And Dell is the perfect candidate. Their growth and all of their profits come from their services business, their PC and laptop business loses money, and they are about to be saddled with a lot of debt from their management buyout by Michael Dell and friends. This would give Microsoft the final piece of the puzzle to be in every business Apple and Google are in.
read closely:
EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia's patents,
MS will license Nokia patent, it will not acquire then
Higuita
"Oh bullshit. First of all when it comes to MSFT pretty much ALL of their successes in the past can be preceded by "and then the other guy did something REALLY dumb" thus giving MSFT a free shot, from BE-OS"
I stopped reading when I got to this particular bit of retrospective rewriting of history.
Microsoft's anti-competitive activities in the Operating System Market
In most cases like this I turn to St. Hanlon, who wisely advises: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." But in this case, I think Grey's Corollary kicks in: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
Of course, it can be debated if the Nokia epic crash-and-burn is adequately explained by stupidity. Just ask Tomi Ahonen.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Do you have 7.5 Billion? Or is that a proposal for other people to risk their money on your idea?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
This is a classical Microsoft move, a Microsoftie join a company ruins it and then rejoins the mothership, resistance *is* futile ..
BBC failed Digital Project Cancelled
Project Kangaroo Cancelled
Highfield joins Microsoft after just four months at Project Kangaroo
BBC appoints Microsoft man to control future media
Considering what Motorola has done for Google, I wonder if the Nokia acquisition will turn out any different for Microsoft.
The game now isn't the devices, it's the cloud. Google v. iCloud v. Microsoft Outlook+XBox+whatever else. These days, the device is just your entry point into your cloud of choice. One of the missing pieces I see is book content. Microsoft already made an investment in Barnes and Noble. Today, Amazon announced the MatchBook program which provides either a free or $1 e-book for certain Amazon physical book purchases made as far back as 1995.
This has to sting an already reeling Barnes & Noble. I'm wondering if Microsoft is going to white knight them as well and add another piece to their cloud puzzle?
Not only they manage to leave Elop behind, but scrap the mobile business that he destroyed.
If Elop manage to get to the CEO of MS, we will all win, as clearly he will slowly destroy MS from inside.
i just feel sad for all those nokia workers...
Nokia still have the patents and can now freely build a phone with android or meego (now Tizen) (probably can't call it nokia phone, call it smart-nokia)... what a killer move!!
Higuita
What a bunch of crap. Modded up because you played the karma whore card, "Time to kiss my karma goodbye".
The CEO has a fiduciary duty to his company and its shareholders. Elop pretty obviously violated that duty by acting in the best interests of MS, not Nokia. It seems to me that there would be strong grounds for a Nokia shareholder lawsuit against Elop personally, and possibly against MS as well. Discovery proceedings could be quite interesting – civil attorneys can demand just about any relevant documents, emails, and so forth. Unless everything was done verbally with no record, there ought to be some evidence of Elop's malfeasance.
So your issue with Google is that Windows can't run on small devices built by HP, Acer, Lenovo, etc. but Linux can?
If you want an old fashioned Intel laptop, with it's 2 hours of battery life and 10 pound heft, there are plenty available.
Or reading what you posted in a slightly different perspective makes MS look like an Evil Genius, and Elop a Mastermind.
Step 1) Infiltrate Nokia
Step 2) Destroy Nokia stock prices from the inside.
Step 3) Buy out Nokia at a fraction of what it would have cost.
Step 4) Return to MS a hero, become CEO.
Step 5) PROFIT!!!
Step 6) The World?
Muhahaha!
I actually bought a lumina 720, just to try after my htc 1x and iPhones. And to be honest, I am very impressed with the quality if the phone, as well as the refreshingly new ui. Further, a 3rd Eco system is something that would be lovely, with one closed system and another track-everything-a-user does system.
I live in Finland and I hate how this company is supposed to be a "national heroic achievement". Finally we get rid of this bunch and there will be some space to breath.
Have gnu, will travel.
I thought that at least Windows Phones might finally get a decent maps application, but it seems that MS didn't buy that.
Then again, that could mean that Nokia/Ovi/Here/There/Whatever maps could find their way onto other devices instead.
Steve Ballmer is simply incompetent. 13 long years and Microsoft is alive and kicking. Worry not, dear shareholders. Stephen Elop has a proven track record in Nokia.
Elop was just doing his Microsoft job by working against the interests of Nokia's stockholders for Microsoft's financial gain. It might be a criminal job, but a job is a job, and I'm not sure that in Nokia's case, the crime was even illegal. Don't hate the enemy soldier for being an enemy soldier.
Nokia's board was presumably legitimately stupid for hiring him. Don't hate your generals for being stupid; hate yourself for fighting under their banner.
No, I'm talking to the next company: Board, explain why your hiring of the Microsoft guy shouldn't result in an immediate investigation. Because you'd have to be either just shocking stupid, or willfully negligent, to embrace a Microsoft agent. The ignorance excuse just can't possibly fly at this point, can it?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Tomi has been following the decline of Nokia on his blog for years now. Here is his reaction to yesterday's new:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/09/another-death-in-smartphone-bloodbath-windows-phone-strategy-so-failed-now-nokia-handset-unit-sold-t.html
Unless MS plans on learning that it's about the OS and most importantly the store, this is a mess about to happen. The goal is not to sell a new phone to every user every year, it's about selling one phone to each user and making sure the store rocks.
If MS lets Elop keep his disgusting "users want 20 phones we'll ignore after we sell them" tactic, it'll fail horribly. MS really needs their own phone... Not phones. Do it once and do it right.
And QUIT letting Nokia do the design!!! Nokia's industrial design sucks. Microsoft proved they do it right with Surface Pro which was an awesome design. I love that Surface Pro 2 didn't come out when Haswell did. I will buy it when it does.
Now, fix Windows Phone. The keyboard sucks. The task switching sucks. Exchange support sucks. The store is loaded with crap... Be selective. Less is more. Make a silent mode button on the phone. Ditch the back and search buttons... Make it part of the apps. Get a good browser. IE is sad. Time to go webkit. Get app session management working. Help Amazon get their apps for the phone right. Let the play/pause button on the headset actually continue play on third party players. Add a codec API to the player so we don't need to recode videos.
If MS builds a phone I hope it uses Intel.
"At closing, approximately 32,000 people are expected to transfer to Microsoft"
This is great news. For years business experts have been saying that one of the main reasons Microsoft has been doing poorly is it doesn't have enough employees.
Hmm. Your rant is too long for me to fully read, but if I understand correctly GRR MICROSOFT!? Is that about the gist of it?
I read a thinly-veiled defense of M$ in your tl;dr post...let's address this:
they weren't doing *well* but that doesn't mean they were going to crash and burn...it's practically Finland's official technology provider...in business for almost 150 years...lots of deep business relationships in Europe
only a dumb, short-sighted (typical) American businessman would look at Nokia and think "ah they're toast"...
Nokia could have switched to Android instead of Widoze.
Sure, they'd have taken a loss to switch to Android, but it was a loss no matter which OS they migrated to!!! Nokia's userbase would have weathered the change as they have for decades of new tech.
M$ jobbed Nokia and the entire country of Finland. The end.
It's kind of like hearing a neighbor couple argue...you can't help but listen but you don't approve of it in any way...that's how I view M$'s raping and pillaging of Nokia. I don't agree with it, I think it is wrong, but AFAIK it wasn't *technically* illegal...so lesson learned I guess?
That's it...that's the lesson: STAY AWAY FROM MICROSOFT or anyone who does business in their manner.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Remember when Jobs was forced out from Apple and he founded NeXT? NeXT was later acquired by Apple for it's OS, which later became OSX as we know it. Elop is now back at Microsoft in a key position (mobile). My bet is that he becomes the next CEO.
When someone decides to buy a smartphone they think - which one has got the best features vs price, best screen, best deal from the phone company, looks the best, has the best app store.
What they DON'T think is "Hmm, what gives me best access to cloud service XYZ?".
seriously, I genuinely wish them well, but I don't see Jolla competing in Nokia's territory.
here's an interview with one of their founders: http://www.ossimantylahti.com/2012/07/interview-of-jussi-hurmola-jolla-mobiles-managing-director/
From that interview:
Waste of time. Android is there. I know Meego exists and theoretically someone here on /. will make a case that it's better but that's in theory land. In the business world, Android is the only viable competitor to iOS.
It'll do more than waste time...it will drain R&D and kill the project.
Jolla, and any other company wanting to do "mobile" should make apps, work on *one* device that fills a gap in the market perfectly and sustainably, and go from there.
making your own OS isn't some kind of badge or right of passage for a 'mobile' company...its just about what is best for your users at that time!
My idea for a device is an iPhone 5 clone that can run iOS or Android, run on any carrier, has a USB and removable memory, and can receive over-the-air radio and TV!
IMHO the 'smartphone' market is about fully 'plateaued' now...it's like the TV market...it's so advanced the product differentiation is small...perfect time for a startup to enter!
Thank you Dave Raggett
it's so obvious now, looking at GP's info on Elop's resume...
so it's all just a bunch of insider trading...
I see alot of commenters gaming out who did what and when and why Nokia failed and Microsoft wasn't 'evil' but made a mistake and on and on...
This is not about sharp, highly technical yet well rounded businesspeople on a board of a company or in a product development team trying to make the best widget for their users...
This is about rich people gaming a system of commerce for their own personal short term gain...it's not 'business' it's Machiavellian bullshit.
Sure, b/c this predatory capitalism makes profits and therefore makes headlines many equate their profit with success...but it is not so...
It's robbery...legal? most likely yes...but in the end it is a failing way to do business and proceed through life
Thank you Dave Raggett
This sends a strong message to any handset vendor: don't support Windows Phone, because if you do you'll be competing directly with Microsoft.
When Google bought Motorola, they were quick to reassure vendors that it would be run as a completely separate business, and wouldn't have any special access or privileges. But I doubt Microsoft will do the same. And if they don't, then any other vendor of phones running Windows will be at a serious disadvantage.
Microsoft is trying to copy Apple, not Google. They want to control the whole stack, hardware and software together. Which is ironic, since they built their success with the same model Google is using now, creating the software that runs on any vendor's hardware.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Who didn't see this coming? Remember Rick Belluzzo? He destroyed SGI by decimating its products, migrating huge chunks of IP to Microsoft (remember "FireGL?" It's now called "DirectX"), and sewing FUD in his own SGI customer base. Job well done, he took his golden parachute and softly landed back at MSN.
Elop is Belluzzo reincarnate. He didn't care if he destroyed the lives of thousands to improve his career. If he gets the MS CEO position after wiping out 90% of Nokia's market value because of his sophomoric blunders, it will confirm how dysfunctional corporate governance has truly become.
Where did the good old Borg drone logo go that decorated MS stories on Slashdot in earlier years? Never would that one have been more fitting than here...
I have a Lumia 520, and I do have a few issues. Other than that, the phone is fine.
I do have some good things to say about this phone as well. Namely, if you are not buying a phone to play games or watch videos, it's a great buy (Don't bother if you want great games, though - a lot of my favorite games are not on this as yet)
Having said all that, I think that only the 520 is worth its price. The others are overkill for plain jobs, and underkill for things like video & gaming.
Will this deal fall under Anti Competitive Anti Trust Laws
so what?
true or false, that statement disproves *nothing* I've said...
there's no law saying that every failing company in Finland must hire ignorant Machiavellian former Microsofties who will slash and burn a century old company...you're way off!
so...no shit Sherlock, when a company is failing (as Nokia was pre-Elop) you can *always* say of that company, "X has no plan...X has no future"
if it was otherwise, the **company wouldn't be failing**
a flagging company is an everyday occurance in the business world...companies go through cycles...but they maintain a minimum of existence and weather storms!
just because a company is 'failing' does not mean they need to hire an unethical *corporate raider* who will suck your company dry then sell it out to a bigger company he used to work for...
then he goes to work for that company
no way man
Thank you Dave Raggett
https://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+contributions+to+linux
Does that mean that Xbox live wiull now carry emulated N-Gage games?
The blind leading the blind.
So Nokia shareholders are to sell their entire mobile business to the scumbags that ruined it for just enough money to own the rump end of their own business free and clear?
Oh for fuck sake only a complete imbecile would point the blame for Nokia's failures at anybody but Nokia's own board and management. You think anybody can just walk in, take over the CEO role and do whatever they want? No this all had the approval of Nokia's board and management, they are the scumbags that ruined it.
I'll offer the Nokia board $7.5B for 51% of the whole company
No you wont.
turf out all the losers that have managed the company into the ground and spank the living crap out of the company that did this to them.
To who? Nokia did this to themselves.
Watching monopolies desperately trying to destroy the open-source world like a bunch of petulant toddlers makes me want to bang my fists and smash things with rage.
What monopolies? The only one I can think of is Microsoft's desktop monopoly, which has no relevance whatsoever here so unless you are referring to some other monopoly that is just a play for sympathy based on ignorance.
and its enormous collection of patents could be used to beat the snot out of the trolls and proprietary monopolists.
What trolls and monopolists? None of the players in the smartphone market are either of those things.
I think a licensing scheme similar to the GPL could be created that forced everyone in the mobile space to 'share and share alike' and to compete on merit rather than in litigation.
How about you actually create something of value rather than trying to take what they have created under the current model? Perhaps demonstrate that your model is indeed better and can actually produce something before you try to take the fruits of the model you oppose and apply them to the model you like. There is a lot of talk that the 'share and share alike' ideology is better but little in the way of proof that it can produce much of anything much less actually be better.
Thoughtful!
Does anyone remember what M$ did to Danger Inc, and the Sidekick? They basically shot it in the head:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_(company)
While I never owned a Sidekick everyone I knew who had one loved it.
What is left of Nokia might be the big winner here. I can't see this going anywhere but badly for M$.
Apple releases iPhone
Google releases Android,
Samsung, LG etc releases android phones
Apple sues Samsung, HTC
Nokia Sues Apple
Apple Sues back
Samsung sues back
Microsoft releases WP
Microsoft sues Android manufacturers
Android manufacturers sues Microsoft back
Google buys Motorola
Oracle sues Google, but FAILS
Apple, Microsoft sues Motorola
Motorola sues back
Microsoft buys Nokia
Microsoft sues Apple, Samsung, HTC
Apple, Samsung, HTC sues Microsoft back
Watch for latest updates - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_wars [wikipedia.org]
Motorola was going down.. Google brought it..
Nokia is going down.. MS brought it..
Now who's ready to buy Sony Mobile?
If you have any left, sell that Nokia stock, and invest in Google. In 6 months, you can cash out with a fortune, or let it ride for 5 years. Nokia used to be a good company. Hardware is still ok. Software is utter crap. There is dying due to market pressure, and then there is 'stick phone 7 into it; this pig is done'.
might be able to get thir app store to fail at beign a steaming pile of shit by reaplacing it with steam.
buy gog.com while they're at it.
windows 9 might actually play dos games out of the box.
posters here, are a fanboi. And I am not going to give you any counter argument, because any counter argument to fanboi's is useless.
As for me, I believe the best OS is the one which makes you productive. If there was one best OS, we would all use that one best OS. So different folks, different strokes, but fanbois do not understand such simple logic.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
i would be crying.
The question is WHY Nokia did this to themselves. It is reported Nokia's chairman got a call from American investors to the point of "Appoint Elop CEO or you will be replaced and he will be CEO anyway". Who are these investors, what is their plan? Nobody knows. They got what they wanted though, much to the loss of other investors and of course, Finland. If I was a Finn politician responsible for such I would be launching a full-scale investigation with all the resources and power of a nation state to find out what happened here.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
From one of the search results:
"Microsoft's contribution in the grand scale of Linux is tiny, with Red Hat, Intel, Novell and IBM accounting for almost 25 per cent of all changes. "
In any case, if they release the code under the GPL I have no beef with that, I see it as a very small capitulation from their part.
The day they open the whole thing I'll forgive them. Maybe.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.