Nokia: Microsoft Is NOT Buying Our Smartphone Division
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has put to rest a recent rumor claiming that Microsoft will purchase the company's smartphone division.
In an interview with PC Magazine, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that the rumor about Microsoft purchasing Nokia's smartphone division is completely bogus. He said the rumor likely surfaced because "some people" are running out of fresh material, and enjoy generating rumors.
The "some people" reportedly refers to Nokia watcher Eldar Murtazin who surmised that Microsoft plans to purchase Nokia's smartphone division based on a report released by Danske Bank last week.
"The deal will be announced in the first half of 2012," he said via Mobile Review. "I assume Nokia’s management is trying to reach a critical point when selling the company out will be the only option. Many Nokia’s top managers hail from Microsoft and judging by their decisions they are still loyal to MS. I cannot see any attempts of trying to save Nokia."
However Elop painted a different picture in the interview. "There's significant synergies between the multiple groups within Nokia—for example, on decisions around chipsets, on memory, on different display technologies," he said. "We gain scale advantages across the entire portfolio of devices that we have."
"In a number of the services and areas where we differentiate, [for instance] location-based services, we have a common team that's doing that work collectively across mobile phones and smart devices, so there's a lot of synergy that exists across the portfolio of Nokia products," he added.
The point he was trying to make is that it wouldn't make sense to sell to Microsoft based on all that scale advantage and multi-department synergies. The scale he refers to has helped Nokia corner the market in the past, especially in developing markets. Microsoft is likely using Nokia to get Windows Phone out to as many consumers as possible, especially if Nokia can push devices at super-low price points.
On Wednesday Nokia's first Windows Phone in the States finally went on sale, the Lumia 710 on T-Mobile, for a super-low price tag of $50 with a new two-year contract.
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Joke. Everything happens from only one reason "This is decided/approved by the board of directors" for the current CEO.Reply
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bebangs Microsoft doesnt need to buy Nokia, they already did. A whooping 1 billion dollar exclusive deal!Reply
ps. meh... I would buy a Nokia Android phone. Why do they have to put all their eggs in 1 basket deal? sigh.
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shompa rex86They're not buying Nokia's smartphone division because they already own it.Reply
MSFT is acutely smarter then that. MSFT gave Nokia 1 billion, but Nokia have to pay MSFT 15 dollar per phone they sell. MSFT will get their money back fast. Stephen Elop is insane. -
shompa Ballmer is an insane man. During his rain MSFT share price have gone down 50%. They have failed again and again.Reply
But. Ballmer is a genius at dirty business.
MSFT infiltrate Nokia and get them to hire the insane Stephen Elop. Nokias share price plummets 75% after Nokia announce that they are going to use Windows Mobile. Nokia is a unique phone company that they can make billions in profit selling cheap phones. The reason is that they have their own factories, design and so on. Low overhead. The insane Stephen Elop thought about a different strategy.
Lets Nokias factories stand empty and outsource the Windows phones manufacturing to South Korea. Lets outsource the OS to MSFT. Lets ousters the SoC to different companies that MSFT dictate. What does Nokia do on their own phones? They "design" them and slaps their worthless brand on their phones and hopes that they will sell. Reality check: It wont work.
MSFT have never succeded in a market there they have competition. Today 94% of MSFT profit comes from Windows/Office. The 2 X86 monopoly products. Everything else they have done have failed. What about Xbox? MSFT lost upwards 20 billion to make it "profitable".
Since Nokia cant produce Windows phones cheaper then Android/Apple phones, they have no advantage.
The other Ballmer genius move: So far 9 Android vendors have signed up to MSFT protection paying 5-15 dollar per Android device they sell. Like it or not: Apple invent Iphone. Google clones Iphone. MSFT gets the licensing money. The funny thing is that MSFT makes more money on Android then Google does.
RIP Nokia. I loved working for you. Rip Ericsson. I loved working for you. Both companies destroyed by MSFT. (In Ericsson's care: ex MSFT CEO Rolf Skoglund destroyed Ericsson. 4 year with him took Ericsson shares from 250SEK to 3SEK)
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back_by_demand shompaBallmer is an insane man. During his rain MSFT share price have gone down 50%. They have failed again and again.But. Ballmer is a genius at dirty business. MSFT infiltrate Nokia and get them to hire the insane Stephen Elop. Nokias share price plummets 75% after Nokia announce that they are going to use Windows Mobile. Nokia is a unique phone company that they can make billions in profit selling cheap phones. The reason is that they have their own factories, design and so on. Low overhead. The insane Stephen Elop thought about a different strategy. Lets Nokias factories stand empty and outsource the Windows phones manufacturing to South Korea. Lets outsource the OS to MSFT. Lets ousters the SoC to different companies that MSFT dictate. What does Nokia do on their own phones? They "design" them and slaps their worthless brand on their phones and hopes that they will sell. Reality check: It wont work. MSFT have never succeded in a market there they have competition. Today 94% of MSFT profit comes from Windows/Office. The 2 X86 monopoly products. Everything else they have done have failed. What about Xbox? MSFT lost upwards 20 billion to make it "profitable".Since Nokia cant produce Windows phones cheaper then Android/Apple phones, they have no advantage. The other Ballmer genius move: So far 9 Android vendors have signed up to MSFT protection paying 5-15 dollar per Android device they sell. Like it or not: Apple invent Iphone. Google clones Iphone. MSFT gets the licensing money. The funny thing is that MSFT makes more money on Android then Google does. RIP Nokia. I loved working for you. Rip Ericsson. I loved working for you. Both companies destroyed by MSFT. (In Ericsson's care: ex MSFT CEO Rolf Skoglund destroyed Ericsson. 4 year with him took Ericsson shares from 250SEK to 3SEK)Nokia had already imploded in the smartphone market before Microsoft arrived, share price was nose-diving, market share was in freefall and despite anyone's claims that Nokias own OS's were technically better than XYZ other company the public didn't agree and were buying up Blackberry, Android and iPhone models by the bucketfull.Reply
Nokia is on a very tough climb back into the market, but if they hadn't done the deal they would probably have been filing for chapter 11 in the last quarter of 2011. -
CaedenV no need to buy a company when you own their soul!Reply
On another note, it is really odd and rare for execs to be loyal to a previous company once they move on. I find that this really speaks highly of MS's management team (in spite of the B-Man sitting at the top). -
Everytime you hear fancy corporate-speak such as the word 'synergies', you know that CEO is all flash and no substance.Reply
WP7 will still not get 10% of total market share, and sales of Nokia phones continue to languish.
Somewhere down the line, shareholders will want an answer. -
__-_-_-__ how would they buy something worthless? nokia worths less then zero. it's a sinking boat and Elop on the command.Reply