Microsoft Now Owns Nokia's Smartphone Business
Should Google, Samsung and Apple be scared?
Microsoft announced on Friday that it has completed the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services business. Microsoft's Suzanne Choney reports that the company not only owns Nokia's smartphone and mobile phone businesses, but the design team, most of the manufacturing and assembly facilities and operations, and sales and marketing support.
"The acquisition also brings key capabilities around [the] supply chain, distribution, operational processes and systems and skill in managing hardware margins to Microsoft," Choney writes. "The unified company will benefit from speedier execution and best-in-class business operations."
From the press release: "Reporting to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is former Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop, who will serve as executive vice president of the Microsoft Devices Group. Elop will oversee an expanded devices business that includes Lumia smartphones and tablets, Nokia mobile phones, Xbox hardware, Surface, Perceptive Pixel (PPI) products, and accessories."
Microsoft will honor all existing Nokia customer warranties for existing devices, beginning April 25, 2014, as part of the transaction. The company also welcomes personnel with deep industry experience in more than 130 sites across 50 countries worldwide, including several factories that design, develop, manufacture, market and sell smart devices, mobile phones and services.
"As announced previously, Microsoft will not acquire the factory in Masan, South Korea, and the factory in Chennai, India, will stay with Nokia due to the tax liens on Nokia's assets in India that prevent transfer," the PR states. "As a result, Microsoft will welcome approximately 25,000 transferring employees from around the world."
Image: MicrosoftThe company hinted that its Microsoft Mobile Oy subsidiary will develop, manufacture and distribute Lumia, Asha and Nokia X mobile phones and other devices.
"We feel very excited that on Day One, the team will have an already established joint operating plan," said Tom Gibbons, Microsoft corporate vice president who is responsible for the Nokia integration. "Customers should see a bunch of great end-to-end experiences that really empower them to have very enjoyable, very comprehensive solutions to things that they want to get done, whether you're talking about smartphones or feature phones. The feature phone product family coming to Microsoft will start to have more of the Microsoft services shipped on those phones right out of the gate."
Microsoft is expected to pay Nokia €3.79 billion for the Devices and Services division, and another €1.65 billion to license Nokia's portfolio of patents, totaling €5.44 billion, or around $7.2 billion USD. However, Nokia is betting that the final price tag will be bigger than what was originally expected nearly eight months ago.
"The estimate of the adjustments made for net working capital and cash earnings was slightly positive for Nokia, and we currently expect the total transaction price to be slightly higher than the earlier-announced transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion after the final adjustments are made based on the verified closing balance sheet," reads Nokia's PR.
This marriage between Microsoft and Nokia's former Devices and Services business should prove to be an interesting topic, especially when it comes to the first product stemming from the deal. Will it be more of the same, or will we see something innovative like Amazon's rumored 3D phone? There does seem to be loads of excitement gushing between the two entities; let's hope that all of that excitement will be poured into a product that will truly turn up the competitive heat on Google, Samsung and Apple.
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I would be very surprised if there is not a product like the 930 in size, but with a SD Card slot. If Microsoft fails to provide a product like that, they do no know what the market wants.
I know that a lot of people want a swappable battery, that has been important to me in the past. I am unsure as to if upcoming products will likely have that feature.
Overall I definitely agree with your statement, but personally I can't wait for all that, I already have a Lumia 920 running WP 8.1 and boy is it sweet....
No.
Nokia started making Android and WebOS based phones last year. If you look at the phones lines Microsoft plans to work on further from Nokia, only the Lumia is a Windows Phone OS.
You have to have a Microsoft account to just edit your contacts ?! I mean what the..?
Another thing is the widgets are difficult to navigate around, and there are no built-in minigames(Like the Asphalt series) You can pay for games, but they should have included some in their phone.
A third thing is the phone design. You need a pin to remove the SIM which is the micro sim, not the regular -- I had to cut my SIM for it to fit in, and I can't use my old phone which has the regular. Also, the battery is difficult to remove.
As a WP8 owner and an app developer, no they shouldn't.
You have to have a Microsoft account to just edit your contacts ?! I mean what the..?
Another thing is the widgets are difficult to navigate around, and there are no built-in minigames(Like the Asphalt series) You can pay for games, but they should have included some in their phone.
A third thing is the phone design. You need a pin to remove the SIM which is the micro sim, not the regular -- I had to cut my SIM for it to fit in, and I can't use my old phone which has the regular. Also, the battery is difficult to remove.
You do not have to login to anything to edit contacts
Are there really still phones that use full size SIM cards?
But I really like the UI anyway , so while you may be bored by it many of us find it much more intuitive and user friendly than either ios or android
My first "smartphone" was an HTC Trophy with WP7. That was my "upgrade" from a KinTwo. Not really an upgrade as WP7 on the Trophy was no more capable than WM6 on the KinTwo.
I'm not against Windows Phone. Tried to get my wife a Lumia 521 to replace her iPhone. She looked at the "home screen" and asked why I was trying to buy her a phone that looked like it was designed for kids.....
If you like Windows Phones, great. Keep on using it. I generally recommend it to anyone looking to buy their first smartphone. Unless the UI changes drastically, I'll never go back to it myself though.
That does bring me to an advantage that Windows Phone has. You can uninstall anything that's pre-installed on the phone, unlike Android. You can do the same on BB10, but it'll get reinstalled when the phone gets an update. At least it did for me anyway.