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Microsoft Purchases Nokia's Device and Services Division to Unite Windows Phone Hardware and Software
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Agree - competition is a great thing. The only loser in this is RIM. With this news - there is little compelling reason for another larger company to buy them out.
This is bad news for MS.
1/ Nokia is in decline.
2/ MS will look to take management control and really MS doesn't have the talent pool. MS managers deciding Nokia plans and future just won't work.
3/ I'll bet no good will come from this move.
MS competitors will be shaking in their boots. Shaking from laughing so hard.
1/ Nokia is in decline.
2/ MS will look to take management control and really MS doesn't have the talent pool. MS managers deciding Nokia plans and future just won't work.
3/ I'll bet no good will come from this move.
MS competitors will be shaking in their boots. Shaking from laughing so hard.
I've had a few crashes running vanilla. I'm not quite sure why you'd brag about it not crashing once a year. You're at the point of absolute-doesn't-matter.
No, they have a license to Maps and patents but they don't buy them
And they don't buy the networks division
Microsoft has one advantage is that they can bring real office productivity apps to the mobile space (tablets) - but they NEED to develop a better mobile app ecosystem. They have mail, contacts, calendar, and photos - but need a music experience like Apple and Google plus beef up maps and they will need an integration layer like Google Now. That will require some real development in their cloud services segment.
This is by no means easy - but if Microsoft keeps chugging along they could be the tortoise that wins the race. However, that also assumes Apple and Google ignore them - I doubt that will happen.
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You are correct - I just read the Wall Street Journal article and noticed that.
Sorry - only on one cup of coffee so far.
They realized it two years ago, when they bought Motorola for $12.5 billion. They just didn't execute on vertical integration. The Moto X doesn't run Android any better than some Samsung smartphone. I can't think of any Android feature that is exclusively tied to Googles own Motorola hardware devision? There is no incentive.
Since virtually no one is making many Windows phones except Nokia, it will be easy to deny them access to some special features, like maps, skype and bing. And than there is Windows on the desktop, which is still a huge monopoly. If they finally manage to integrate all their platforms and services, they will have a huge advantage.
Meanwhile Apple is loosening the strong tie between iOS and OSX, sending iOS in a totally different direction in terms of appearance and iconic design language. Not good.
Ehm, no one I think. RIM still holds a 50% larger markeshare than WinPh, but only in the US - in Europe WP leads 3:1 over BB. And all the larger companies who once had a BB as their business phone of choice, are now busy rolling out IOS (or/and perhaps Android devices). If MS executes it right, WP phones could become great business units, but I don't see how Nokia's low-end phones fits in.
My bet is RIM will be out of business in a couple of years, at most.
They realized it two years ago, when they bought Motorola for $12.5 billion. They just didn't execute on vertical integration. The Moto X doesn't run Android any better than some Samsung smartphone. I can't think of any Android feature that is exclusively tied to Googles own Motorola hardware devision? There is no incentive.
Since virtually no one is making many Windows phones except Nokia, it will be easy to deny them access to some special features, like maps, skype and bing. And than there is Windows on the desktop, which is still a huge monopoly. If they finally manage to integrate all their platforms and services, they will have a huge advantage.
Meanwhile Apple is loosening the strong tie between iOS and OSX, sending iOS in a totally different direction in terms of appearance and iconic design language. Not good.
Some solid points. However, Google is now just starting to integrate their purchase of Motorola. I am on my second Motorola android and it is a far more durable phone than my last Galaxy 3 and it has the pure Android on it. Google will eventually give it an advantage by always updating the Android version - thereby reducing fragmentation experienced with the other makers of Android phones. They will creep this in slowly because I can guarantee they see what Samsung is doing. If Samsung goes to far - they can push them into the Tizen zone by making Motorola phones the Nexus platform of choice.
With Apple - I don't think they are pushing OS X and iOS apart - iOS has to have a different interface because it is a mobile platform - you don't want OS X to look exactly like iOS - see what the lack of a start button for Windows 8 computers. Apple is integrating the two platforms via iCloud. However, Apple needs to invest more in their mainline software - iLife and iWork.
Interesting times we are living in.
Meanwhile Apple is loosening the strong tie between iOS and OSX, sending iOS in a totally different direction in terms of appearance and iconic design language. Not good.
Who cares about icon designs? And I'll bet the next version of OSX will have a similar design language to iOS. There's only so much Apple engineers could accomplish in 7 months or so.
And for people that complain about iOS is the screen below really pleasing to the eye? Could you quickly glance at that screen and really get information from it? My eyes are darting all over the place not sure what to focus on.
Why weren't they tightly integrated before? The Lumia line only runs Windows OS and for pretty much all intents and purposes isn't the Lumia line the only line running Windows OS? So weren't both parties pretty much designing for each other for the last two years?
Failed? They've gone from 0% to up to 8% market share in some regions. I'd say that's an encouraging start.
And some people simply have no idea how many valuable patents Microsoft have just got their hands on.
This is going to to bring us back to Mac Vs PC
But this time it's all about the mobile devices.
Microsoft will deliver phones and tablets that support word and spreadsheets, while Apple will revisit the cool and fun aspect of music, movies and games.
But this time it's all about the mobile devices.
Microsoft will deliver phones and tablets that support word and spreadsheets, while Apple will revisit the cool and fun aspect of music, movies and games.
Woah! That is huge news. First Google, now Microsoft. Companies are really starting to realize that tight hardware/software integration is incredibly important.
Great! Now get to work. Oh, and fix this mess.
So your saying he didn't get this box?
I did a search and thats the only box I could see. Could not find the AT&T box he was referring to. But I did look at a few unboxings on youtube and this is the box I saw.
A massive difference there. Why would Nokia allow the carriers to totally butcher their nice enough box for that plain carrier crap for a box? No wonder people are hesitant to buy it? A nice box is like looking at your food. If it does not give a good first impression it will taint people's feelings as they use the device.
Microsoft need to insist that the Nokia phones have Nokia boxing and not carrier boxing. Yes it does matter.
I've had iPhones and iPads crash. In any case, 2 crashes in a year is basically the same thing as zero crashes. That is a nice track record.
Now my Windows 8 Laptop, if Microsoft can only get that to work. I'd like that.
Let me stop you right there. It wasn't Nokias idea, that all manufacturing jobs should go to China. As much as it wasn't Apples idea, when the same happened to the computer industry decades ago. The Chinese government wanted to enslave their people to low-payed manufacturing jobs and they got their will.
Assembling phones is no longer a viable business in Europe and especially not in Germany. See what Apple did with Designed in California. Assembled somewhere else. Thats the way to go for european companies as well. Nokias mistake was to give up software design and hand itself over to Microsoft.
Apparently you don't come here often because if you did you would know Apple is not the only subject discussed here.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to announce the Nokia acquisition, Ballmer's retirement & replacement CEO and restructuring at the same time, rather than 3 separate events all within the span of a month or so?
Think of it this way.
Yes it costs more to have 3 separate events/announcements for all of this, but 3 announcements equals 3 separate press releases which equals 3x the free MS advertising. This site macrumors did one article per event and all on separate days. I know it's all within one month but it's a whole month's worth of interest and not just one day if they had saved them all up for a single announcement/event.
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Way to go Microsoft, maybe Windows Phone will eventually see some growth now... or Nokia escaped a sinking ship
Unrelated: I like MacRumors sharing more than just Apple news. Don't get me wrong; I come here for the Apple news (and the decent community) but it's nice to be able to pick up the major events that occur in other companies without having to scour 50 other websites.
Those 50 other websites all have their own bias, as does this one. And you only get the full picture if you read the rumours from multiple sources
1) Steve Jobs was on to something there I guess -- just too ahead of his time w/ the Mac.
2) Did HTC, Samsung, etc give up on Android when Google bought Motorola's phone division? Did Dell and HP give up on Windows 8 tablets when Microsoft started making their own?
But the reality is Nokia was already MS's strategic partner for Windows phone hardware. The difference now is that MS had more control over it. Whether MS can handle that added responsibility time will tell. MS's biggest problem is that it was too late to the mobile game and has so much catching up to do in a segment where users get complacent with whatever platform they started with.
MS/Google and the rest buy marketshare. Apple buy the patents/expertise it needs to grow it's own marketshare. Two very different ways to try and achieve the same thing.