Nokia was not successful (by any definition of the word) by the time Microsoft bought it.

That's true, they weren't.

Several years before that purchase, Stephen Elop (an MS executive) became CEO of Nokia. Within 6 months of his hire, Nokia signed an agreement with MS to sell Windows Phone devices; the classic Symbian OS and the Linux-based Meego - both of which had shipping hardware - were canceled in favor of exclusive focus on Windows Phone. Within the next few years, Nokia laid off over 20k people, their stock dropped by about 85%, and they even sold and then leased back their HQ in Finland. They were a lot less successful by that point, and a lot less expensive to purchase. Which Microsoft did.

There was some amount of controversy associated with the above.

Believe me I know. I was there.

Although technically MeeGo had no shipping hardware at the time. The N900 ran Maemo, the first (and sadly only) MeeGo hardware to ship to the public was the N9 which didn't ship until months after the "burning platform" announcement

> There was some amount of controversy associated with the above.

Can't see why. It's obvious Microsoft perfected executive outplacement as an offensive weapon.

How is Microsoft extinguishing Skype? I've seen no such evidence personally

The Linux client no longer works and they filled the Windows client with ads and senseless bloat.

Nokia was a patent bundle firesale.

Interesting, as no Nokia patents were bought by Microsoft.

MS licensed their patents, but the current profitable Nokia kept them and has a unit dedicated to research and IP.

One can argue that the licensing was cheap, but cross-licensing agreements between companies is very common.