The news of the week and probably the biggest news since Google bought Motorola is that Microsoft finally decided to take over Nokia and save it from… itself. The Redmond giant will be buying the Finnish Devices & Services segment and integrating it within the big MS.
The transaction will be closed in the first quarter of 2014, when Microsoft will pay 3.79 billion euros for Nokia’s business and an extra 1.65 billion euros for the patent portofolio, that’s huge. The total is about 5.44 billion euros, which in turn is around $7.2 billion, so it’s less than what Microsoft paid for Skype in 2011.
32.000 employees will be transferred from Nokia to Microsoft, including 18,300 involved in the manufacturing process. As for Stephen Elop, he will no longer be Nokia CEO, instead taking the role of Device chief at Microsoft, also overseeing projects like the Xbox One and Surface tablet. Microsoft and Nokia were in talks about acquisition in June, but the conversation stalled then.
Many expect Stephen Elop to take the place of Steve Ballmer in the next 12 months when he leaves the CEO position and this move has put him among the favourites. Windows Phone was already the third most popular smartphone OS lately, beating BlackBerry and now we wonder if this buyout will make it a solid number 2 contender… What do you think?
