4 ms·
Yeah. What a ridiculously one-sided deal. Heads I win, tails you lose. If Nokia had done well, Microsoft would have acquired them for an artificially low pri
by cmccabe 13y ago
Yeah. What a ridiculously one-sided deal. Heads I win, tails you lose.
If Nokia had done well, Microsoft would have acquired them for an artificially low price. Now that they have crashed, Microsoft is free to walk away. Nokia can't get out of the deal without making ruinous repayments to Microsoft. Meanwhile, MS is developing its own hardware, which will compete directly with Nokia. In the long term, who knows? They might even perhaps to scupper the whole Windows Phone project, like Windows CE before it.
As I said at the time, the absolute best case scenario for Nokia under their current course is to become another white-box OEM for Windows, operating on razor-thin profit margins. And we all know how Microsoft treats its OEMs.
Probably the best thing they could do now is go declare chapter 11 (or whatever the Finnish equivalent is) and sell the component businesses. NAVTEQ ought to be worth a lot-- after all, TeleAtlas went for several billion a few years ago. Bankruptcy might give them a chance to get out from some of these pound-me-in-the-butt contract terms, too. At this point, the company is probably worth more broken up than whole.
- camus 13y agoTheir own CEO is former MS , that explains a lot.
- hkmurakami 13y agoBefore starting at Nokia, Elop worked for Microsoft from January 2008 to September 2010 as the head of the Business Division, responsible for the Microsoft Office line of products, and as a member of the company's senior leadership team. During his time at Microsoft, the Business Division released Office 2010.[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop
- hkmurakami 13y agoBecause Nokia is such a vital part of the Finnish business and economic ecosystem, I wonder how feasible it is to actually enter bankruptcy. As we have seen in the past with US companies, it's not always a pure business decision with these things (also, management always, always has an incentive to drag their feet in the ground and keep collecting paychecks).
- jsnell 13y agoThe plan you suggest is beyond ridiculous. Nokia has a totally decent net cash balance compared to their revenue. Their actual operations range from slightly non-profitable to slightly profitable. No company in a position like that would (could?) declare bankruptcy just to escape a relatively minor contractual liability.
- cmccabe 13y agoSo spin off the profitable parts and restructure the non-profitable ones. Or, I don't know, keep riding the failure train right off the side of the cliff. Whichever is easier.
- nikster 13y agoStrangely, this kind of thing is what happens to most of Microsoft's business partners. Also strangely, businesses never seem to learn and keep making the same mistake.