Nokia: There will be NO smartphone division selloff to Microsoft
Buyout rumours just won't die
Posted in Management, 5th January 2012 16:04 GMT
Free whitepaper – Hands on with Hyper-V 3.0 and virtual machine movement
Rumours that Nokia is about to sell its smartphone division to Microsoft and that CEO Stephen Elop will jump after closing the deal have been denied yet again by the Finnish phone-makers.
The suggestion that Nokia will sell off their crown jewels to Redmond has been rebuffed before, and even had an impact on the markets last year, but despite the Finns repeated denials, the rumour simply won't go away.
The source of the most recent batch of stories is Mobile-Review publisher and Russian tech blogger (Russian and English) Eldar Murtazin, who believes that the deal is imminent and that it will spell the end of the Finnish phone company.
It's not the first time Murtazin has made this claim, nor his first punching match with Nokia honchos, which include a highly publicised punch-up in which the Finnish phonemaker "sicced Russian authorities on him to get back as-yet-unreleased Nokia property". As El Reg pointed out at the time Murtazin first made his claim, he has a decent record of accurately predicting other moves by the company...
According to Murtazin, Elop will meet Microsoft's Steve Ballmer in Las Vegas today, and he alleged on his Twitter account that it wasn't just for a light lunch:
Steve Balmer, Andy Lees and Stephen Elop, Kai Ostamo will meet in Las Vegas to finalize agreement about Nokia smartphone unit. Bye Nokia
Murtazin then went into a little more detail on the supposed arrangements: "Stephen Elop will be resign as Nokia CEO in 2012", adding "(I told that several times but repeat again)".
He said that the Nokia brand wouldn't be used for the new Microsoft smartphones, and that one or two production plants would likely change hands with the deal which he expected in the second half of 2012.
Murtazin said that the cost of maintaining phone-producing plants was starting to tell on Nokia's balance sheets, and that the company couldn't maintain their levels of expenditure.
Microsoft could be interested in Nokia's thick wad of patents and could possibly wish to shore up their hardware capabilities following Google's purchase of of Motorola. Microsoft's track record on hardware is mixed: the XBox has been a big success but a previous attempt at a phone – the teen-focused Kin – flopped in 2009.
Nokia's UK communications manager David Hall denied the rumours once again:
"We have firmly scotched rumours of the smartphone division being sold to Microsoft," he said. "We have knocked them on the head time and time again."
Hall added that he didn't know Stephen Elop's diary so could not confirm whether the Nokia chief was meeting Microsoft hardman Steve Ballmer today or not, though allowed that it was possible that both men would be in town with CES. "If he is it would be in connection with our long-term partnership". ®
Free whitepaper – Hands on with Hyper-V 3.0 and virtual machine movement
COMMENTS
It's coming...
I wouldn't quite promise to eat my proverbial hat if Microsoft doesn't "Borg" Nokia before the end of 2012, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't happen to some degree. Why?
- MS already has one of "theirs" at the top of Nokia, who defenestrated Symbian and Meego almost as soon as he walked into his office.
- Elop has overseen Nokia's sales go into freefall since "WP Day" on 11/02/2011 (yes, they weren't exactly healthy before Elop "did a Ratner", but the dive has steepened considerably since).
- Two words: "Google" and "Motorola". Nokia has ample phone hardware nous, and is sitting on a nice fat portfolio of patents - a most tasty feast for a behemoth which knows it has a lot of catching-up to do in the mobile space, don't you think?
Might not happen after all, but I will be very far from surprised if the assimilation takes place, and sooner rather than later.
(at least not until)
Nokia's intentionally suicidal business decisions made by Ex-Microsoft's bosses make Nokica's shareprice almost worthless.
At which time, Microsoft will come rushing in like heroes on white horses to rescue the ailing mobile giant...
Is that how the storyline will be played out at Redmond? I think so.
re: Which part of MicroSOFT don't you understand?
Yeah, see the thing is - MS probably does want the patents, and currently Nokia is bordering already on being worth more "dead" than alive. It conceivable to continue to see Elop tank Nokia, and then MS swoop in to purchase patents, and then just kill off the rest of the company by selling off the remainder of the assets. It is a dog eat dog world after all... They can also get around the monopoly issue by *just* buying the patents, and nothing else... Nortel was sold off piecemeal like that...
I said it before elsewhere, but Elop essentially "Osborned" Nokia by making a premature Windows Phone announce with no forseeable shipping product. He had (and dare say has) not much skin in the game if Nokia goes away, he made his money already with MS. If Nokia goes buhbye, he's still living quite comfortably. Currently, Nokia is no longer in the US market at all, so a recovery is *almost* insurmountable there. Meanwhile Samsung and HTC sell winmobes (and droids) in the US already and can finance Winmobe losses by Android profits, so why does MS need Nokia again other than for Elop to run them into the ground and then MS grab the patents? Elop's actions have been questionable at best...
doublespeak
"We have firmly scotched rumours of the smartphone division being sold to Microsoft," he said. "We have knocked them on the head time and time again."
Nothing in that statement says that there are no plans for the division to be sold. All he said was that they tried to quash rumours about it being sold - which they would do if they wanted the share price to be lower.
And I agree with Alex that the name needs to be changed. Preferably to something without the words "Windows" and "Microsoft". I wouldn't buy it anyway...
RIP Nokia. You can always go back to wellies...
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
The new Office Garage series:
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
