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?

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: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!

[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.