Microsoft/Nokia Deal Closes

Last September Microsoft announced it would be purchasing Nokia's Devices and Services business. The terms have been worked out, the shareholders gave approval, and the regulatory issues were hurdled. As of today, it's official: Nokia's phone business is now Microsoft Mobile. The final price is around $7.5 billion, and 30,000 employees are transferring to Microsoft. "The purchase of the unprofitable division makes Microsoft the world’s second-largest maker of mobile phones with about 14 percent of the market, according to researcher IDC." Here's Nokia's official statement, and a rather more personal one from an employee. According to The Verge, "Nokia's Android handsets are the most intriguing part of the deal, as they shed some light on how Microsoft might approach the messy and complex nature of shipping devices that don't run the company's Windows software. The Nokia X introduces a new "forked" version of Android that’s akin to what Amazon does with its Kindle Fire line, but it also includes a Windows Phone-like UI and an Android store that's separate to Google Play. Microsoft has the chance to control another app store, but also a solid opportunity to push its own cloud-based services." One interesting note: Nokia's phone manufacturing plant in India is not part of the deal because of an ongoing tax dispute. Nokia will continue to operate it as a contract manufacturing unit for Microsoft.

Comments

Let me be the first

[symbolset]

Let me be the first to welcome Microsoft to the ranks of Linux PC OEMs. Amazing times we live in, eh?

IT'S A TRAP!

[serviscope_minor]

Our shareholders cannot repel executives of this magnitude!

Seriously, is there anyone in the tech industry who didn't think it was a massive trap when Elop joined?

He basically prepped nokia to be ripe for takeover by microsoft. I mean after committing so heavily to such a minority platform, who else would have wanted them? Massive inside job and apparently completely legal!

Re:IT'S A TRAP!

[serviscope_minor]

Maybe, but Nokia would still have ended up in a far worse situation without the Microsoft deal.

May have. They still had an assload of patents on almost all areas of mobile phone hardware and showed no sign of slowing down in that department. They also were still moving a metric assloads (approximately 1.1 imperial short fucktons) of dumbphones.

Companies have turned around from worse successfully.

Re:IT'S A TRAP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Which Microsoft deal would that be?

• The one where they took their media fuctions from Microsoft and then Microsoft failed to deliver music?|
• The one where they took their office software from Mictosoft and then Steven Elop failed to deliver software?
• The one where they took their OS from Microsoft and then MS failed to deliver working apps?
• The one where they sold of their crippled mobile phone division to MS?

Re:IT'S A TRAP!

[king neckbeard]

That's an outright lie. They bought TrollTech, were shifting Symbian to QT, and thus would have built an app ecosystem that was at least partially shared between Symbian and Maemo. They later collaborated with Intel's Moblin project and Maemo became Meego. They released the N900, and that seemed to be what their future plan was before MS got involved.

Also Sailfish is a Jolla OS and didn't exist back then at all.

I know, but it is the successor to Meego and was a company of ex-Nokia devs, so practically speaking, Maemo, Meego, and Sailfish are the same OS.

Re:IT'S A TRAP!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

It's worse than you think

I think though, this is the result of the bungling OPK and even a bit before him Jorma Ollila, where the company wasn't focused on putting out great products but rather became concerned with infighting and territorial control. The whole place was dysfunctional from the inside out.

Re:IT'S A TRAP!

[CptPicard]

Still untrue -- the MeeGo plan was the supposed future and the pre-Elop Nokia was full-on backing it. The Nokia N9 was the best mobile device I had owned, and then Elop came in and didn't give it a release in any major markets.

Re:IT'S A TRAP!

[dos1]

Unfortunately, Maemo/Meego plan was internally fought over by the Symbian team, creating unnecessary, unhealthy competition inside Nokia and delaying success of any of them. When Nokia finally realized that it was Maemo that had greatest potential for future, not Symbian, they were already quite a lot behind competitors. Elop could either make risky, but potentially beneficial for the company decision in favor of Maemo/Meego, or take an easy road as a trojan horse, mostly beneficial for himself and for stakeholders in short term.

It's a pretty sad story about major mistakes in management of a very big player, which at its last chance to return into significance after couple of bad moves was just kicked in its balls by someone who was supposed to take care of it and gradually sold cheaply.

There's a good book on the subject

[CRCulver]

Anyone interested in how a former giant could collapse so bad would probably enjoy David Cord's The Decline and Fall of Nokia . I flipped through it at our large bookstore in Helsinki and found it gripping enough to purchase there and then. Besides press coverage, Cord bases his account on interviews with former Nokia staffers -- there are a lot of bitter Nokia veterans in the Helsinki veteran who want to get the inside story out. Also, as much as I love my N900, it is sad to see that the writing was on the wall even before that particular device came out.

Re:There's a good book on the subject

[Minwee]

Strange as it may seem, there are still people in the world who enjoy reading more than 140 letters at a time.

Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Microsoft will have a phone you don't want to go along with the tablet you don't want.

Re:Sweet

[nine-times]

I'm sure they'll also work quite well alongside the copy of Windows 8 you got stuck with, including the installation of IE you'll never use and the copy of Microsoft Office you wish you didn't need.

Re:Nokia two and half times the size of Apple

[CRCulver]

Apple and Google didn't have the infighting that Nokia did. They could concentrate fully on pushing iOS and Android respectively, but Nokia had people territorial about Symbian and management inefficiently directing resources between different teams.

For the REAL radical dudes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Microsoft will have a phone you don't want to go along with the tablet you don't want.

I am SOLD!!

I am gonna get my MS Phone and Tablet, walk up the iPhone using -iPad carrying people and say, "Hah! I'm one bad ass motherfucker! I'm bucking the trend and I don't even have tattoos!"

And I'll walk proudly into a LUG group with my Microsoft phone and tablet and when looked at disparagingly, I tell stare back and yell,"You wanna a piece of me! Huh! Yeah! Didn't think so!"

Hell yeah, I'll be one original guy! Not some sheep iThing user, not some pseudo cool Android user BUT A FUCKING MICROSOFT USER! I'll be TOUGH! Different! A lone wolf!

Re:Death of symbian?

[Kalriath]

Can confirm, I have/had an S60 mobile. Terribly slow UI, constantly crashing, but at least the apps had a consistent(ly bad) design.

The phone also randomly rebooted in the middle of phone calls. That was cool too.