Microsoft-nokia

Labor day weekend has come and gone without any big news stories happening – save for one. Microsoft has purchased Nokia services and devices, as well as an agreement to license Nokia patents, all for around $7.2 billion.

Around 32,000 Nokia employees are expected to transfer to Microsoft. 4,700 of those employees are located in Finland and another 18,300 are spread worldwide throughout Microsoft’s manufacturing, assembly, and packaging departments. The company doesn’t plan to move any significant operations.

Stephen Elop, Nokia’s president and CEO, will join Microsoft as Nokia executive vice president of what’s essentially Microsoft’s Devices and Studios with most of the Nokia teams worked in. He will report to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Julie Larson-Green will still be the head of Devices and Services Engineering Group, joining Elop’s new team.

Terry Myerson, whose team already has a working relationship with Nokia through the partnership announced in February 2011, will remain head of the new Operating Systems Engineering Group.

This is a huge step for both companies. For a while, Microsoft was looking to acquire BlackBerry, which obviously seems highly unlikely at this point. As to what will come from this development, it could easily go either way. Nokia has much, much more marketing muscle now and this move solidifies them as the Windows Phone manufacturer, which could result in HTC and Samsung losing interest in Microsoft’s mobile platform. This could all be a good thing. Nokia will be working more closely with Microsoft on their phones and the competition could put more focus onto Android. Time will tell.

via The Verge

 

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