Microsoft’s agreement to buy Nokia’s handset business, codenamed Project Gold Medal, was more of a sprint than a marathon.
Talks between the two companies began in February after both sides agreed a two-year-old collaboration on smartphone development wasn’t working, according to people familiar with the deal.
This cannot be true. Internet commenters told me in no uncertain terms that Nokia and Windows Phone were doing just fine. And internet commenters are always right.
Perhaps there is a translation issue involved. When I ask my wife, “How am I doing?”, and she says, “Fine.”, I know I am screwed. Maybe it’s like that. Am I right?
The “Internet commenters” are called “Nelson”? 🙂
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?570895
Since Thom is himself an “Internet commenter” I guess that tells us how much gravity we should assign to what he says….
Oh, wow. You’re actually taking this story seriously. Oh my.
Other unfounded rumors Thom has run with:
http://www.osnews.com/story/27139/Not_even_Microsoft_has_faith_in_N…
http://www.osnews.com/story/26431/Microsoft_working_on_its_own_Wind…
http://www.osnews.com/story/25480/Microsoft_To_Acquire_Nokia_s_Smar…
http://www.osnews.com/story/26686/Nokia_sold_4_4_million_Lumias_in_…
First Nokia is going to sell in 2012, then Microsoft is working on their own phone, then Microsoft doesn’t want Nokia, and now Nokia didn’t want Microsoft.
Turns out to be true
Probably true and they will probably merge ms phone division with the old nokia phone division.
Turns out to be true
If Nokia were a startup they are doing pretty well. But we remember when they were 60%+ marketleader.
So Microsoft wanted a flagship device for Windows Phone. They thought they could get that with the Nokia deal. But MS thinks Nokia failed and now Nokia is so cheap they can just take the phone division and run it as they see fit.
And you want to turn this into Thom making arbitrary predictions?
You know, you could cut the sexual tension on this site with a knife. Its the great OSNews will-they-won’t-they story.
LOL. There are just too many inconsistencies here.
On one hand, in one narrative that Thom parrots in parallel, Mr. Elop is a Trojan horse who’s sole purpose is to destroy Nokia value and sell the company to Microsoft.
That same day he’s pushing a story about how Nokia was reluctant to enter a deal with Microsoft because it wasn’t working out, and that soul searching had to be done.
Then a few weeks earlier Nokia was so worthless not even Microsoft wanted them (and apparently now Microsoft rushed to purchase them)
And a few weeks before that Microsoft was inevitably releasing a Surface Phone.
I find it odd timing that “sources close to the matter” only materialize today. These outlets are just trolling for headlines and page views.
It could be that these are two very large companies, and that their having a single sentiment on soeething as divisive as this is unlikely…
There is most likely evidence to support all of the varying sentiments, because they were most likely all held, probably even in parallel by some individuals.
Thom just likes to troll, just a little bit.
Tongue in cheek is probably a better description.
Just to start a discussion.
Edited 2013-09-04 09:46 UTC
I think I’m convinced that Nelson is the worlds best Troll. He’s done it expertly, put all the redit/4chan kids to shame.
Past is prologue, I find it extremely unlikely MSFT is buying BBRY, especially now. Its a dumb move.
Similarly what’s said about Nokia doesn’t seem legit to me, and given the past reported rumors on here, it should be taken with a grain of salt.
Is your Kin off? I tried calling you last night.
Let’s meet at the mall and go over Powerpoint slides. We have a lot of news sites to deal with.
At least he can turn his blind eye to any crit of himself…
Which is a sign of a very good troll.
The source is Bloomberg. If it was a link to “Joe’s Awesome Nokia Blog”, I’d agree, but it’s freaking BLOOMBERG
It goes against what’s confirmed and established, mainly that the deal took 7 months and involved multiple board meetings. That’s not rushing anything by any means.
I’m weary of all the pontification going on in light of this announcement (both for and against the deal) simply because I knew today there’s be nothing but stuff like this.
Once the dust settles I’ll be a bit more inclined to pay attention to unverified rumors, but I’ve been burned by them enough to know better.
7 months for a buyout is actually “rushing it”, specially for companies as large as Nokia and Microsoft.
Except Microsoft did not buy Nokia, they bought a division of Nokia. 7 month is not a rushed deal.
No, it goes against what YOU think is confirmed and established. In case you haven’t noticed it, not a lot of people agree with your view. Including Nokia’s own shareholders who where becoming increasingly impatient with Elop and his lack of results (http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/05/shareholder-to-nokia-ceo-ar…), while you where telling everyone that Nokia was doing just great.
Find me one company where every shareholder is happy with the direction of the company, this is absurd.
Fwiw I’ve talked to plenty on the inside who are happy with the direction Mr Elop took, and plenty who are not.
I think the most heroic thing about it is happy or not, those on the inside gave their 100%. That’s something that’s rare, and I fear will be a culture clash with some of the lackadaisical divisions within MSFT.
NOKIA SMARTPHONE DIVISION PERFORMANCE UNDER ELOP
First 6 months – Smartphone quarterly revenues up 29% from 3.4B Euro to 4.4B Euro
Next 2.5 years – Smartphone quarterly revenues down 73% from 4.4B Euro to 1.2B Euro
First 6 months – Smartphone quarterly profit up 94% from 283M Euro to 548M Euro
Next 2.5 years – Smartphone quarterly profit of 548M Euro turned into loss of -168M Euro
First 6 months – Smartphone quarterly volume up 18% from 24.0M units to 28.3M units
Next 2.5 years – Smartphone quarterly volume down 74% from 28.3M units to 7.4M units
Nokia smartphone market share when Elop started – 35%
Nokia smartphone market share when Elop departed – 3%
Nokia ranking smartphones when Elop started – 1st
Nokia ranking smartphones when Elop departed – 9th
Gap to leader when Elop started – twice as big as number 2 (RIM) or number 3 (Apple)
Gap to leader when Elop departed – Samsung smartphones is 12x bigger than Nokia smartphones
(from: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/ )
It’s reported by NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomburg, Time, Forbes, and other quite reliable sources. Nokia’s stock jumped 30% today.
And you suggesting they are all sole-sourcing this story from OS News? Or that Microsoft and Nokia are lying about the acquisition and willing to take the fall for stock manipulation?
I’m honestly puzzled by your comment. What gives?
No. The issue in question was whether or not this was a rushed deal, Bloomberg is the only outlet running this.
Ah, I see. Sorry, your comment was a bit terse, and I didn’t follow. Thanks for clarifying.
Yeah, I kinda wonder how they came to that conclusion. 6-7 months in the making isn’t rushed by anyone’s standards.
Is your name “Anyone?”
I think the other shoe is going to drop pretty soon… Nokia by itself is quite a prize, but Nokia + (parts of) Blackberry makes a whole lot more sense. Between the two companies there is a whole lot of institutional knowledge when it comes to supply chain management, carrier negotiation, enterprise relations, etc. etc. – thing Microsoft seems to struggle with.
Then there is the “why not” argument… Everyone was floored when Microsoft spent 8.5 billion on Skype. The key thing there is it was a deal made purely with offshore funds. Nokia = same thing…
Even after the Nokia deal, Microsoft is still sitting on close to $40 billion in offshore cash – money they can’t actually use for anything in the states without taking a huge tax hit. Blackberry is a Canadian company, if they can broker such a deal with offshore funds why not?
To be clear I don’t see Microsoft buying Blackberry outright – but I could see them picking off some parts of BB in the process of funding a privatization plan – BB goes private and sells some key assets/patents/personnel to Microsoft in exchange for investments to fund a stock repurchase. Weirder things have happened…
I’ve always considered Nokia’s E series to be European Black Berries. But the form factor that made BlackBerry important is dead. Most people don’t want small screens and great physical keyboards.
I don’t think a straight up merger would be a good fit. There is nothing valuable or unique that Blackberry brings to the table except the name and assorted patents.
I’d imagine that any move towards Blackberry would cause a lot of scrutiny from various regulatory agencies around the world. That would be a lot of essential patents (Nokia + Blackberry) for a single company to own.
Microsoft is not buying Nokia’s patents in their deal – they are licensing them. Nokia still retains ownership of their patent portfolio, but Microsoft essentially has bought a 10 year universal license to all of their patents.
Which is why I think when it comes to BB what they will want to do something very similar, i.e. license their patent portfolio but keep BB around as a separate entity to manage them.
Remember when Microsoft licensed SCO’s linux patents? Remember their investment in SCO? Remember what happened next?
I think Nokia has too much upside to turn into another SCO, but Blackberry is a different story. BB’s future may just be as MSFT’s attack dog against Google…
Patents are only valid for 20 years, and Nokia’s patents are mostly from 10 years ago. If Microsoft is licensing them rather than buying, I assume it’s some kind of legal maneuver to get around anti-trust laws or to avoid counter-suits. It certainly won’t help Nokia to hold onto their patents once they’ve expired.
Edited 2013-09-04 02:17 UTC
See this:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/nokia-confirms-patent-at…
Microsoft buys BB, same thing – but since they would likely be reduced to nothing BUT their patents – they in effect become the SCO of the mobile world…
I don’t think Thom’s Mr. Elop is a Trojan argument works. For it to be true we need to see Elop as a Genius Machiavellian working with evil, strategic, clandestine Geniuses at Microsoft whilst those at Nokia are all bumbling idiots. On the other hand we could see both companies dominated by vision-less, apparatchiks floundering about for a handle on the future. Look at Microsoft’s flagship product Windows, releases over the last decade – Vista, Windows 8 or Nokia’s failure to embrace the smart phone. Which seems most likely?
As a rule of thumb I’d never put down to conspiracy what could be simply be stupidity.
Excuse me?
The article says it wasn’t working, but it doesn’t say it wasn’t selling, actually, there are no sales numbers there.
Wouldn’t it be working if it was selling? At least for Microsoft.
Well now that Mr. Elop is going to be new CEO of Microsoft, I must say this: Do what you do best, Mr. Elop, and reduce Microsoft to a pile of dust.
So when will Nokia’s board tell its shareholders how many other bids they solicited and received for the asset?
Feeling smug are we
Windows Surface Lumia Phone is coming in 2016, priced around $600. It won’t run WinRT or WP8 apps but it will have a new API that developers are going to love. A corporate update is expected in 2018, with requested features from Windows Mobile slated for around 2020.
And to think some of you questioned Ballmer. I’m sure the board will be begging him to come back after his voluntary vacation.
seriously? And people thought nokia was rudderless with their moves with symbian, and maemo and meego, qt, etc.
I guess this new phone API *might* make sense if it closely paralleled ios and/or android allowing easy porting from these ecosystems to windows phone. Perhaps pigs can fly and hell has frozen over and MS is getting ready to adopt open standards (opengles, etc).
Nope.
It would be funny if they bought Jolla (very improbable but it could be brilliant )
Apparently, they aren’t allowed to make phones until January 2016, but after that they are free to do whatever they want and it would be funny as hell if they bought Jolla back and started making a comeback.
Dream on …they specifically made an exit out of consumer market, think this wasn’t on purpose?
https://securecdn.disqus.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/606/5219/orig…
It has been already removed.