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A comment on The Deal That Makes No Sense.

Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by shadowmint on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @06:21AM (#6320065)
I don't agree with all the things in this article, but there certainly rings a bell of truth in there somewhere.

A 5.44 billion EURO transaction to acquire a company that is already in a strategic partnership with you and working exclusively with your platform doesn't make sense.

My vote also goes for Nokia being financially in trouble, and M$ have their hand forced by the fear of a collapse in Nokia would gut the distribution channels for all the flagship windows phone models.

Worse, what if word got out and someone else bought them?

...wait, no, that would mean Microsoft would have some special insider knowledge of Nokia's finances that no one else was party to. Surely not.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by maaaats on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @07:10AM (#6320213)
The article is full of errors and unbacked claims.

> ... adding on a mobile phone business that Microsoft probably should abandon ...

Why should it be abandoned? Just because the author isn't a fan of WP8?

> have argued that Stephen Elop made a massive strategic error by choosing Windows Phone over Android; ... It would have been to Nokia’s benefit to have everyone running Android, including themselves.

Not necessarily true. There's only one manufacturer making money on Android at the moment, Samsung. When Elop got aboard, Nokia was already waaay behind. It's not like he drove them down, he merely tried saving them. Choosing Android might have gone better, but probably not. At least it was better going for WP than sticking to their own, dying systems.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by rmc on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @07:40AM (#6320322)
Why should it be abandoned? Just because the author isn't a fan of WP8?

The general public aren't a fan of WP8 either.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by iaskwhy on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @08:15AM (#6320426)
20% of the general public in Poland, Mexico and some Eastern European countries don't agree with that claim. People forget how varied is the smartphone market across regions.
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by ZeroGravitas on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @10:02AM (#6320988)
I can't find anything to back that claim up. The only thing I can find that's even close suggests that Nokia had 19% marketshare in Mexico for 2012, but based on other stats that's by far accounted for by Symbian devices:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/245193/market-share-of-mo...

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by hippiefahrzeug on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @08:41AM (#6320539)
People want smartphones. WP phones are the cheapest entry level smart phones (such as Nokia 510, 520, 610, 620) they can afford in eastern europe.

You see WP devices 'a lot' (that is: you get to see them once in a while) over there, but these are mostly owned by people who wanted some sort of smartphone. Also a lot of them are quite annoyed that there are no apps.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by rmc on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @10:27AM (#6321144)
Sounds like 80% of the general public in Poland, Mexico and some Eastern European countries aren't a fan of WP8.
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by chris_wot on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @08:23AM (#6320453)
Only 20%? This is not a great argument!
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by mkr-hn on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @09:22AM (#6320751)
As Apple fans are often quick to point out when someone mentions Android's share, market share is not the only (or best) measure of a platform.
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by chris_wot on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @09:40AM (#6320856)
Except the argument was that the general public aren't fans of Windows phones, to which 20% market share of a few regions was used as a counter argument.

I would tend to think that market share is one indicator of a phone platform's popularity, and while 20% is not bad, it's not an amazing figure either.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by mkr-hn on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @09:55AM (#6320944)
I looked around for a chart of the iPhone's market share by year, but couldn't find one. I remember the iPhone having trouble in its first year or two, and most of WP8's credibility comes from the ~2 year old Lumia line.
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by chris_wot on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @10:05AM (#6321010)
True. In 2010 the iPhone only had about 4% market share. My only point is that I'm talking about popularity of existing devices. It may well be that Microsoft will turn it around!
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by ZeroGravitas on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @12:52PM (#6322027)
The other way to look at it is that iPhone had ~100% share of the "modern smartphone" market (choose your own name for it, but Blackberries and Symbian don't count).
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by andrewfong on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @06:54AM (#6320160)
> ...wait, no, that would mean Microsoft would have some special insider knowledge of Nokia's finances that no one else was party to. Surely not.

Not really an issue if the board approved going to Microsoft with the financial information first. Moreover, when negotiating the strategic partnership, Microsoft may have gotten a right of first negotiation, that would legally entitle it to first dibs on the acquisition and certain "insider knowledge" anyway. Ultimately, shareholders might still have to approve the transaction, but there's no insider trading issue with reaching out to potential acquirers on the downlow.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by yulaow on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @07:01AM (#6320178)
So, since the begin the Board was aiming to an acquisition by microsoft after nokia would be so in debt that the total cost would drop?

It seems like the board, since now, has made the interest of microsoft and not nokia.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by tanzam75 on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @11:30AM (#6321491)
Nokia does not have a net debt position. They have about €2 billion of net cash. After the Microsoft acquisition, €7 billion.
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by akandiah on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @07:11AM (#6320215)
>My vote also goes for Nokia being financially in trouble, and M$ have their hand forced by the fear of a collapse in Nokia would gut the distribution channels for all the flagship windows phone models.

I believe M$ and Nokia made a strategic agreement around 12 months ago that guaranteed that if anyone were to purchase Nokia, it would be Microsoft. The writing has been on the wall since then. I don't know why people are surprised by this move.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by justincormack on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @08:14AM (#6320422)
No need for a deal. Going windows phone only made Nokia unsaleable to anyone else anyway.
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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by discodave on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @09:00AM (#6320630)
Except by somebody who had an interest in making WP go away...

Although I'm sure there would be howls of protest and possibly regulatory issues with Google, Samsung or Apple buying Nokia.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by marcosdumay on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @09:49AM (#6320897)
WP is perfectly capable of going away by its own feet, nobody needs to help.
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