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."

Comments

Beware of Microsofties bearing gifts

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Beware of Microsofties bearing gifts

[symbolset]

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.

I would mirror that if you want to keep it. Seems likely to go away at any moment.

Re:Beware of Microsofties bearing gifts

[Anonymous Coward]

A long time Finnish stock analyst wonders the same (on the record)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/09/02/nokia-sells-handset-business-to-microsoft-at-a-shockingly-low-price/

Re:Beware of Microsofties bearing gifts

[Anonymous Coward]

Symbian? Probably not. Meego? Definitely.

Re:Beware of Microsofties bearing gifts

[hairyfeet]

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 tying itself to one niche CPU after another to netscape putting out the abomination that was NS4 not once did MSFT "come up with some brilliant plan" they just got lucky and were able to capitalize on having a competitor that was a moron.

Second of all Nokia WAS ALREADY TOAST by the time the board called in Elop, they had not one, not two, but THREE OSes, not one of which was up to the task of competing with Android and iOS, the ONLY place they were ahead was in dumbphones which was like being the biggest 8-track manufacturer in 1987, they couldn't go with Android because not only was the Android market then as now the most cutthroat commodity market in mobile (only HTC and Samsung has made any real money and I'd argue they are on borrowed time, Hong Kong was showing off dual core Android phones that retail for $70 not 4 months ago so like PCs its gonna be profits measured in pennies) but Samsung and HTC frankly would have curbstomped them as nobody does high end Android units better, and they just didn't have the money to compete with HP for WebOS which IMHO would have been the best choice. Add in the fact that a couple of Maemo devs were quoted as saying Maemo wouldn't have been ready for another year and a half MINIMUM (it was having serious memory corruption and CPU issues at the time) and the app devs wouldn't have made shit for maemo anyway after Nokia burnt their bridges to the community by changing the framework? yeah there really wasn't any choice, it was take WinPhone or close the doors and give the money back to the shareholders.

All those that hate MSFT frankly ought to be dancing in the street, as this gives ballmer the chance to piss away...what? 9 billion US dollars? And while shitting away a mountain of money Ballmer's retarded attempt to turn Windows into a WinPhone is frankly killing the Windows desktop, talking to other shop owners we have all even stopped carrying Win 8.x anything as its a bigger bomb than WinME, and finally you KNOW that Ballmer is gonna push hard for his little yes man Elop to get the big chair because it will let him still push his "vision" which consists of burning the desktop and server business to the ground so he can push half assed Apple clones that are worse in every way compared to the real thing, worse walled garden, worse performance, worse app selection, everything mobile under Ballmer/Elop has been half assed and piss poor and I don't see that changing if Elop gets the big chair.

But I leave you all here with a warning, be careful what you wish for. So many wanted MSFT dead for being douchebags they aren't even noticing they are replacing one douchebag for an even worse one, Between the big brother levels of data that Google is gathering on every android user and the fact that their new ChromeBooks took what SHOULD have been a completely bog standard X86 laptop and made it so proprietary that the ONLY way to install a different OS is to throw it into "Dev mode" and then and ONLY then can you install not whatever you want, but only one of a handful of Linux distros supported by some guy in his basement? say what you want about MSFT but at least i could grab any Windows desktop or laptop and be booting to install not only any previous MSFT OS but pretty much any other OS, Linux,BSD,Haiku, whatever, in under 20 minutes.

So while we all know where this is gonna end, another shitpile of money pissed away, declining sales on the X86 front and flatline numbers in mobile for MSFT, lets not replace one asshole company for another shall we? as for Nokia...oh well, between Samsung, HTC, LG, and a bazillion Chinese brands there really isn't a place for Nokia anymore now that the dumbphone market is dead. Hell when I was shopping for my Android phone several of the shops had refurb android phones starting at just $20 and new for $50, with prices THAT low for smartphones? Nokia might as well pack it in, no point in even making dumbphones anymore.

Re:Hmm...

[LordLucless]

What's incredible is that I haven't seen any mention of the shareholders or board of directors attempting to sue Elop's ass off for malfeasance.

Re:and there goes the Nokia Android

[Stormwatch]

If you want "more choice", Nokia had that before. It was called MeeGo, and Elop killed it.

Re:Suddenly, the money is in hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the LG deal (2009). Or the Motorola deal (2003). Or the Nortel deal. Or the Verizon deal. Or the Ericsson deal. Or the Sendo deal.

Depressing inevitability

[gnalre]

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....

Re:and there goes the Nokia Android

[Stormwatch]

Yes, I'm familiar with The Legend of Spectacular N9 Sales.

Spectacular reviews, and terrible sales because Elop sabotaged it.

Re:and there goes the Nokia Android

[LavouraArcaica]

I know some people that have (or had) a N9. Everybody, including non-geeks, says it's the best phone ever. It's ok if you don't believe me, go check the reviews.
And, hey, It was launched even before the Windows Phone 7.5 (which actually "late, buggy"). Microsoft only made a competitive OS with WP 8, 2 years after the Meego was ALREADY in the market.

I really don't understand how so many people buys the official MS-NOKIA-ELOP version of the history, where everything points the contrary.

Re:and there goes the Nokia Android

[andydread]

Yep but Microsoft products certainly is not it. I would rather and Open Source platform dominate than ANY proprietary platform.