Nokia Announces Return To Smartphone, Tablet Markets (nokia.com)

Nokia is making a return to phones and tablets. The Finnish company on Wednesday announced that it will license its brand and IP to a newly created company called HMD global. The company in question, Nokia says, will produce and sell a range of Android smartphones and tablets. The company has also inked a deal with Microsoft to acquire the rights to use Nokia brand name on feature phones and also utilize some design elements. Nokia veteran Arto Nummela will assume the CEO position when the deal is closed, which is expected to happen by the end of June.

Microsoft announced today that it has sold the remainings of Nokia's feature phone business to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn. As part of the deal, FIH Mobile paid a sum of $350 million to Microsoft. Interestingly, HMD global and FIH Mobile already have a collaborative agreement in place to support the building of a global business for Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets. Nokia says it will set mandatory brand requirements and performance-related provisions for the new devices.

Comments

What does it all mean?

[thegarbz]

Like seriously what is the value of the Nokia brand now. Or a better question what is a Nokia phone?

A feature phone made by one company?
A smart phone made by another?
Neither related to Nokia themselves?
Neither related to Microsoft except to give them money for the now completely and utterly butchered brand?

Re:What does it all mean?

[bazorg]

Silly car-related questions:

What does Seat mean to the VW Group?
What Bugatti models did people know before the Veyron?
Are VW Golf made in the same factory as Audi A3?
How were things at Skoda in the 10 years before VW Group bought them?

Aficionados will know a lot a bout their subject of choice, but the rest of us are guided by what clever brand marketers tell us and what we hear from other buyers. Nokia is a major brand worldwide and they can make a comeback in a variety of ways. I doubt they'll build from the ground up a major app ecosystem to make Apple and Google quake in fear, but it looks like there's plenty of money to be earned from building Android powered gadgets in China and selling them worldwide.

Ask random Joe on the street next year which phone they pick between Xiaomi, Lenovo and Nokia if they all have a 5" screen, run a current version of Android and carry a USD250 price tag.

Reminiscent of Commodore

[blind biker]

Commodore's brand is now thrown around on products that have neither the innovativeness nor the features of the original Commodore computers. In fact the brand has now been prostituted so much, it's all but worthless. I hope the same won't happen with Nokia, but it seems likely.

Partnership With Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Has it ever in the history of business or computing, resulted in something positive for the partner company?