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Microsoft To Cut 7,800 More Jobs, Take $7.6 Billion Writedown On Nokia
jones_supa writes: Microsoft is about to announce another round of layoffs. A company press release confirms the plan, saying that it will target up to 7,800 employees and will be aimed mostly at the hardware division. The hardware division includes the lion's share of former Nokia employees, which became part of Microsoft last year. In an e-mail to employees, chief executive officer Satya Nadella reiterated the company's commitment to its phone business, though he also said that some refocusing was necessary and that Microsoft's phone business would reflect the overall Windows strategy: "We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem that includes our first-party device family," the e-mail reads. "As a result, the company will take an impairment charge of approximately $7.6 billion related to assets associated with the acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business in addition to a restructuring charge of approximately $750 million to $850 million."
Microsoft successfully killed the actual Nokia
No, they just bought the Mobile phone business from Nokia. Actual Nokia is very much alive with Network, Mapping and IPR business.
successfully transferred the IP to themselves
No, they merely licensed the patents from Nokia. Nokia corp still owns the patent portfolio and it is generating good revenue for them.
maybe the decision to but it in the first place was stupid and misguided?
Yes, a wise move by Nokia. Quadrupling in stock value since.
MS didn't get all the IP. Nokia kept most of it which makes the original deal more unsound. MS got the business while Nokia kept the patents.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Nokia is still around, they've just reverted back to their core business - selling telephony equipment.
Nokia's well known for their handsets, but handset business is awful, due to its consumer nature. It's low profit, mass production, with lots of time wasted on stuff like warranty and support.
Microsoft bought that business.
Nokia's core business of selling equipment used to run cell networks is still around - Microsoft didn't buy that, and the core is honestly where the money's at. Think whenever a carrier goes and sets up a new cell tower all the equipment they need to buy - controllers, baseband processors, amplifiers, exciters, receivers, antennas, etc. all costing 6 figures minimum. And one set for the bands in question, another set for 2G, 3G and 4G, ... and you're talking millions of dollars of hardware, the BOM cost of which is probably well under $100k.
And with 5G on the horizon, that's more opportunity.
The real Nokia is still around, and they've shed the crappy parts of their business.
All besides the point. I was not talking about HOW they got to 2011. Instead I was talking about WHAT they were doing in 2011.
Symbian was a cash cow that had been milked past the point where it was healthy for Nokia. To that point, Nokia saw Maemo/Meego as their way out, switching to modern Linux based OS. Elop offered another choice. Shitcan Maemo and go to Windows Mobile instead.
No one knows how sticking with Maemo would have worked out. Would it have saved Nokia? Who knows?
We know how going with WinMo worked out. They lost a year of sales. Who wanted to buy a Symbian phone when they knew it was dead, anyone who wanted a non-linux Nokia handset just sat back and wait a year, thus tanking sales. The Linux based Nokia phones were selling like hotcakes despite the fact they were not being marketed. That was a pretty good sign going with WinMo was the wrong thing to do. Then when the new WinMo Nokia handsets arrived, the market rejected them.
Since they killed Maemo and sold off QT they had no option but to stick with WinMo at that point. The rest is history
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