Microsoft to buy Nokia mobile phone business for 5.44 billion

A lot of changes is happening in the Mobile Phone Industry

• Google buying Motorola Mobile devices
  Sony bought Ericsson out the Sony Ericsson phone partnership
  Nokia buying Nokia Seimens shares in the Network system, and now
  Microsoft is buying Nokia out of its mobile business mystery

Microsoft will buy Nokia's phone business and license its patents for 5.44 billion euros ($8 billion), making its boldest foray yet into mobile devices and bringing executive Stephen Elop back into the fold.

The deal changes the nature of both companies. Nokia is exiting from the mobile-phone business it once dominated, leaving it mainly as a wireless-network equipment maker. Microsoft, which became the world’s largest software maker on the back of its Windows operating system, is moving aggressively into hardware.

Nokia chief Mr Elop, a former Microsoft executive, will return as Microsoft's board ponders a successor to current CEO Steve Ballmer, who will depart sometime in the next 12 months after initiating a reorganisation intended to transform the software company into a devices and services group in the mould of Apple.

Read more: smh

Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's handset business has certainly ensured that the media has a ton to talk about for a long time to come. Unpleasant as the current turn of events may be for some, when one door closes, another opens, as the saying goes. Thomas Zilliacus, now former Asia-Pacific CEO of Nokia appears to have taken the above to heart, and is planning big for his newly-founded company dubbed Newkia.

The cheesy name aside, Zilliacus is promising to push (and, hopefully, deliver) on an idea that smartphone fans and watchers alike have been contemplating for a long while now – the solid hardware of Nokia, married to the unmatched success of Android. Of course, the smartphone industry has proved to be a highly contested area, and unfortunately for nascent Newkia and the like, it's mostly the really giant companies that turn a profit. Naturally, therefore, before we even entertain the admittedly compelling idea, one has to ask how on earth will the ex-Nokian make a headway in an industry largely unwelcoming of newcomers. Simple, really – apart from already having a team of senior former Nokian executives on board, the Fin has also unanimously stated that he'll be poaching talent from Nokia, among others. Moreover, Zilliacus claims that the chosen team of execs is mainly comprised of those people he considers were not given enough voice and were sidelined by those, whom he deems culpable of the current predicament the Finnish manufacturer finds itself in:

“Well I think it's a good deal for Microsoft, but I think it's a disaster, or rather the result of a disastrous strategic error on Nokia's side in going for the Windows Operating system 3 years ago. So it is, in a way, a natural end to a sad story, but it opens up a lot of new opportunities”, Zilliacus said when asked why he's unapproving of the Microsoft deal. - phonearena