Microsoft will pay about $5 billion for the division that creates devices, and another $2.18 billion for Nokia‘s patent portfolio. The software and NSN departments of the Finnish company will remain independent.
Nokia has finally gone down in history after push-button phones. Who is to blame for this – the former leadership, who turned out to be not ready for changes, the “sent Cossack” Stephen Elop, during whose reign the company flew out of the top ten smartphone manufacturers in the world, the rapidly developing market is a difficult question.
On Mobile-review.com Elop is blamed for all the sins, although the company’s share price fell from $28 to $8 even before he took over as CEO of Nokia. And this is in two years – from 2008 to 2010. VentureBeat writes that the company was drowned by the iPhone and other smartphones. The truth is probably, as always, somewhere in the middle.
One thing is clear, now Microsoft is leaving only fragments of the former greatness of the phone company.
The acquisition of Nokia will be completed in the first quarter of 2014. Whether Microsoft plans to release devices under this brand in the future is unknown.