Microsoft buys Nokia's mobile business Microsoft has announced it is buying Nokia's mobile devices and services business. Revealed in a flurry of press releases in the small hours of Tuesday, the deal will see Microsoft “pay EUR 3.79 billion to purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, and EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents, for a …
I wonder what happens to the non-Windows Phone parts of Nokia - their lower end phones? Admittedly WP is increasingly moving into the low end, but it still can't replace a £20 phone yet, plus some prefer the traditional phones with long battery life and physical keypads.
I hope Nokia's own online store (which still serves the massive Symbian and S40 userbase) won't be dismantled quite yet...
Will the Nokia branding remain? I hope so - MS would be foolish to drop it.
It will also be interesting to see if Nokia's software (Maps etc) which have been added to the Lumia phones will be made part of the standard WP package, and offered to other manufacturers.
"It's certainly not an easy problem to solve when the two other ecosystem players are so dominant."
There's only one dominant smartphone platform that I'm aware of (there used to be two, but Nokia ditched Symbian a couple of years ago). What's the other one? One dominant with nearly 80% share, and then two or three minor ones. Seriously - I find it funny that Apple always gets counted as "dominant" at 15%, and the line is conveniently always drawn below Apple. Consider that WP's share is comparable to Mac OS's 6% share on PCs, yet people still count Mac OS as one of the two "dominant" platforms. Talking of goalpost moving:
"Surface has flopped."
One million sales is a runaway success for Apple, but several million is a flop for MS? Sorry - whatever you think of the Surface, it isn't a flop. It isn't a runaway success either (just as Apple's releases aren't). Yet more goalpost-moving to favour Apple every time. I don't care about the Surface, but let's not twist the facts inconsistently to suit an agenda.
Unless it's okay for me to go around calling the iphone a flop based on its early sales.
Still, I suppose we should be glad the author isn't labelleling the 100 million selling Windows 8 a flop, as some claimed it was...
X Box is also another example of a good selling product, so it isn't just Windows and Office.
Just so you understand why you are considered a fool...
A) The dumb phone market is dying, period. In the USA - you get get a smart phone for $80... so the only uptake of WP8 in Europe are the bottom end models.
B) In terms of total OS system in use, Android and Apple are now dominate. Apple is a major player, period... Samsung sells more phones, but Apple makes far more money. Also, Samsung makes money off of iPhones.
C) ""Surface has flopped." One million sales is a runaway success for Apple, but several million is a flop for MS? " LOL, you're funny. Over the course of a year - MS has SHIPPED about 1.7 million Surface Pro/RT tablets with losses, and thats before reducing the prices by $150 on the RTs. MS has lost about $2 billion on the Surface when you include the loss of sales and money spent on marketing that DID NOT generate sales. The only people who bought the Surfaces were fan boys, for the most part.
In the time frame that MS sold/shipped 1.7 Million Surface units, Apple sold about 30 million iPads...! Apple sold 3 million iPads in 3 days when the Surface went on sale.... ugh. Surface = fail.
"Unless it's okay for me to go around calling the iphone a flop based on its early sales."
Again, Apple sells more iPhones in a day than Nokia sells Luminas in month. When Apple sold 37million high end iPhones, Only about 7million $1~100 Luminas we sold in 2013... mostly entry level models. In the USA, Lumina 925 is a $100, the 920 a $50 phone... meanwhile the Samsung, HTC and iPhones remain as $200+ phones. That makes the WP platform not as good as it sounds.
Xbox360 did very well... the XBone is another story already. People will buy it... but many more of us will be buying the PS4.
That's the same cash which can't be repatriated back to the US without a MASSIVE U.S. tax liability.
C'mon you labor/labour-voting lefties, let's hear it "tax avoidance!, tax avoidance!".
C'mon Peggy Hodge, make yourself look even more stupid that after your Vodafone comments!
I love how everybody seems to think that this is one big conspiracy rather than a company that made a number of miss-steps despite once being a leader in the market being eaten by a partner.
Nokia are just Palm all over again, it's not like this story is without precedent.
Choppers coming to take away the nutters (hopefully).
`It cannot be said that Nokia‘s decision to sell its handset unit to Microsoft is a surprise. But what definitely are surprises are the timing and the price'
http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/09/02/nokia-sells-handset-business-to-microsoft-at-a-shockingly-low-price/
How much did Nokia pay for Navteq?
;-)
That's Nokia HERE today.
If you don't think Map Technology is important... then you haven't been paying attention to Apple. ;-)
When your CEO has to publicly apologize for poor quality maps... Kinda a big thing.
Posted ANON for some good reasons. ;-)
Maybe you're right.
The Nokia BoD's bet on Elop and the wonderous WP, where they literally bet the farm on it, has failed and they are cutting their losses and ditching Elop and the burning wreckage that remains in his aftermath.
Nokia has wisely kept ownership of patents, done cross licensing deals with MS, kept their valuable trade name, kept NSN and the valuable maps division, etc. etc. In fact, to me this deal looks like the board firing Elop and telling him to take the shit pile he created from what was once a glorious global force in mobile phones with him back to MS from whence he came.
I could be wrong, but this is not quite the outcome I expected, and it might actually save Nokia as a corporation and give it some breathing space to regroup and refocus on new opportunities.
It is sad none the less, as a lot of engineers in Nokia were fired during Elop's mad WP binge - some of them my friends. And it is without doubt somewhat sad to see Nokia's mobile phones division be consumed by a company legendary for destroying everything they touch.
I cannot see an upside in this deal for MS, I think the two clowns might have made some serious miscalculations. I don't expect anything not smartphone related to be in MS's hands within 18 months, MS is not going to get into the low end business, it's too hard and the MS "bully boy" business model will not really work there. Also, the network operators hate Ballmer with a passion, and MS just as much. Does he really think he can buy their good graces by buying Nokia? This can only end bad for MS.
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