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China Approves Microsoft-Nokia Deal, Gets Patent Concessions In Return
itwbennett writes: "On Tuesday, China's Ministry of Commerce gave conditional regulatory approval to Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's Devices & Services business. The $7.2 billion deal means that Microsoft could very soon produce its own smartphones using the Windows Phone operating system. In return, China is requiring Microsoft and Nokia to make promises on fair patent use, fearing that the proposed acquisition between the two companies could spell trouble for the nation's Android device makers."
Did china care about patents... Considering all the knockoffs they make over there.
means that Microsoft could very soon produce its own smartphones using the Windows Phone operating system
?
MS doesn't actually make the phones, you see. They make the OS and rely on OEMs to make hardware it runs on.
Is this feeling the same one that non-americans get when a major economic issue has to go to the US supreame court, or FCC, or FAA, or ICANN?
Because as an American, this feeling is weird.
So, Microsnokia bought regulatory approval in China. Colour me surprised.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
As mentioned before, MS does not have a great incentive to kill Android. MS get a free chunk of money for every handset sold. Cheap phones from Nokia simply mean that MS loses money.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Earth to sexconker...they just bought Nokia's cell phone division...don't think they bought it just to stop the one not completely unsuccessful company selling phones with Windows Phone OS just to shut it down...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Earth to you: Read what I was fucking responding to, dumbass.
Yes, daddy China will let Microsoft and Nokia marry after they Elop(ed) last year.
Meanwhile Uncle Sam gets no say since manufacturing is not happening there and due to tax evasion the companies pretend to not be based there.
Elop must be pretty happy that Nokia was not a Russian company and that those Fins are so polite even when they get screwed over - if they were Russian he'd have their distinctive Polonium calling card in his blood.
Massive sales of Nokia symbian phones in the Chinese market even after Elop announced the death of the platform kept Nokia afloat, and probably delayed both Microsoft's planned buyout of the crippled company and the implementation of Elop's plan to kill the platform. Tens of millions of phones at only ten bucks or so of clear profit are nothing to sneeze at so even Elop couldn't kill it without risking a lot of difficult questions from the Finnish government. If he'd done that and driven Nokia well into the red then buying Nokia for a tiny price, saving it from going offshore, and deporting the obvious corporate wrecking ball could have been a vote winner for the Finnish government.
Considering that Microsoft is a US company and Nokia Finnish, what would happen if China did not approve?
If selling more phones than the two main competitors combined is a mess then what they hell is the disaster Elop left? I suppose the metric that mattered above all was the stock price, which went down massively under Elop making it a bargain for his former (and now current) employer, Microsoft.
China is requiring Microsoft and Nokia to make promises on fair patent use
I think a few brain cells just exploded. What can possibly be fair about an extortion permit?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
"Considering that Microsoft is a US company and Nokia Finnish, what would happen if China did not approve?"
Microsoft's new Nokia division could not to business in China.