3 ms·

If I were MS I'd do this deal very differently than standard deals. It would be contingent on a successfull rollout of Nokia phones, with success defined as sa

If I were MS I'd do this deal very differently than standard deals. It would be contingent on a successfull rollout of Nokia phones, with success defined as sales. So the deal would be that they'd buy Nokia's phone division for some premium (maybe $19B is that number) assuming that Nokia ships 5M phones in Q4 2011 and 20M phones H1 2012. If that happens the deal goes forward. Otherwise the deal is killed. I'd do it this way for a couple of reasons: 1) The Nokia brand run by Nokia has a lot of value. Not sure if MS owning the brand hurts it. But if they can ship a solid phone that sells the disruption to MS owning the brand is disminished. 2) Having this sort of incentive keeps Nokia hard at work until these phones ship and sell. Otherwise, I'd fear an exodus of talent. Which even if it doesn't effect the phones, may effect perception.

kenjackson 15y ago
And if I may reply to myself :-) This ties into my latest theory as to why Ballmer is in good standing with the board for now: Nokia. My theory is that Ballmer has a very solid relationship with Elop. Recall that Elop did the odd thing of announcing he was going to Nokia, while still President at MS. I can't recall many examples of that happening. Ballmer must've been fine with it. I suspect the Nokia partnership/acquisition is Ballmer's big play and the board knows it. Viewed in that light the Skype acquisition and Nokia play are the same deal (you don't do an $8.5B acquisition, while you're in the midst of a huge Nokia play, unless you've tied them together). The board likes the Nokia play and is seeing it through. If it works out, Ballmer is there for a while. If it doesn't work out then Ballmer is gone.