Nokia

Microsoft buys Nokia!

Microsoft announced today that it had reached an agreement to acquire the handset and services business of Nokia for about $7.2 billion. Nokia had more than n 40% of the handset market in 2007 but it’s business has dropped of sharply mostly because of competition from Apple’s iPhone. Microsoft will now finally compete in a market it has largely ignored.

More than 30 000 Nokia employees would join Microsoft as a result of the all-cash deal, which is meant to turn the Finnish mobile phone pioneer into the engine forMicrosoft’s mobile efforts.

Nokia began life as a conglomerate making products like rubber boots and car tires before reinventing itself in the 1980s as the world’s largest manufacturers of cellphones. This deal is the latest transformation of the 150 year old Finnish company.

Nokia’s once mighty position in the mobile phone business has been lost, as the industry shifted to the era of the smartphone. Samsung and Apple divide nearly all of the profits in the global smartphone business now.

Nokia’s fall has been most spectacular in Asia, a region that its phones once dominated and it’s market share in China dropped from 64% in 2010 to 1 percent.

 A deal between the 2 companies have been expected by experts for years and it remains to be seen how many of us will use the new Nokia..