> 2) Someone else was going to buy them - I wondered about this with Apple's Maps fiasco, they had much better maps than Apple did, although I don't think Nokia would go for a breakup with partial acquisition.
Am I reading the news wrong or is this a partial acquisition? It actually looks like Microsoft just made it easier for Apple to buy the part of Nokia it would want (maps).
I don't have inside information here, but from what I know about such things, breaking it up decreases the overall value sometimes. Sort of a "leave the desirable asset attached to the junk to ensure it all sells." In the press release Microsoft did they explicitly call out getting the Maps unit as part of the deal.
It would also have been a disaster for Microsoft if Google had bought them, not that I think they were thinking about it.
His thesis though, that something forced this move, is pretty credible. And the choices being (in order of likelyhood)
1) Nokia filing for bankruptcy - this one clocks up as being most likely for me
2) Someone else was going to buy them - I wondered about this with Apple's Maps fiasco, they had much better maps than Apple did, although I don't think Nokia would go for a breakup with partial acquisition.
3) Nokia switching to Android - this one I hear from people who wish it were true, but haven't seen much from Nokia on it.
Nokia has clearly been hurting for a while. Small flashes of excellence in an otherwise confused consumer experience. They also showed that you could build a competitive experience with Microsoft's phone product but it hasn't been helped by Microsoft's inability to get the developer traction it wanted.
Time will tell if it was able to change the path of Nokia and Microsoft for the better.