This whole deal with MS buying Nokia is bad and too expensive.

[Coolknight1968]

Why spend 7 billion if you can do it for 3.5 billion?
Why destroy the Nokia mobile device brand?
Why this negative attitude towards Nokia Android devices?

MS wants the patents, not the Chinese factories that produce crap or the sinking feature phone business.

Where will MS get the volume for components?

It would make more sense if MS bought only 51% of the mobile division which would become a new company owned by MS, Nokia and other partners. HTC could for example join, maybe Huawei. Joint components purchasing, development, producing Windows Phones and selling components to the partners at slim markup that leaves lots of savings in components to the partners. This new MS Nokia Mobile, would make all low and mid range mobile devices. The partners would split the cake of all the high end devices. MS, HTC, Huawei would make all top of the line smartphones and tablets, sharing the Nokia mobile developments under guidance from MS Nokia Mobile. In some markets where the Nokia brand is strong, there would be Nokia high end devices.

A little like with Nexus devices, manufacturing would be split among the partners. I.e. Huawei would do the lower priced phones later sold as Nokia. HTC all the high end stuff sold as Nokia. Etc. So if in a market, you can not sell the Nokia but the Huawei... Just slap a different name on it. Each partner would concentrate on his competence.

And MS Nokia Mobile should also sell partner Android phones under the Nokia name to ship enough volume to the carriers and distributors to be relevant. With the objective to sell as many devices as possible and mainly WP, RT, Win8 products. But there will be Android products if a partner needs them and for specific markets and product segments.

Of course MS Nokia Mobile would give all devices sold over it the desired identity interface (Skin) wise.

Feature phone factories of Nokia would be closed down as fast as they loose money. Replacing any such products with re-branded partner products. Each partner could still have its own devices, but these would not be sold over Nokia Mobile which would reduce their volume in some markets.

All partners could if they have a hit on their hands, outsource to Nokia Mobile insuring that the manufacturing risks are reduced for all.

You do the math, you save a fortune doing it this way and as the distribution and product mix improves, MS and all partners make loads of money.

Also the patents of Nokia, would be in MS Nokia Mobile, free to use for MS Os products with discounts for use in Android products if agreed upon MS Os product sales quotas are met.

Less risk, less manufacturing overcapacity, less costs for components, now all partner manufacturers love WP and MS Os products... MS Nokia Mobile would also benefit from partner technologies, reducing parallel development waste.

Last MS Nokia Mobile could add lots of income by distributing partner products in markets where the partner has difficulty placing his excellent product under his name.

Doing it this way is way more efficient and profitable and would allow its partners and MS to get much more market share with MS Os products at lower risks with higher margins for all.

What does MS know about hardware manufacturing? They outsource everything like Apple.

The Ballmer plan is a bad plan. Expensive, risky and not flexible...

I would call this new company 'Mobile Fusion'...

 

[Simon Tupper]

Why spend $7.4b? Because they had $70b just sitting there.

 

[Coolknight1968]

It is not because you can spend more that you do spend more, you look at what the return for the shareholders is!

 

[Reflexx]

MS bought Nokia's mobile division because they have everything in place to produce and sell on a very wide scale.

Selling products in hundreds of different countries with hundreds of different laws and regulations is a monumental obstacle. Nokia already has it handled. So that part alone is valuable.

MS and Nokia also found that they were often doing work twice. They were on the same page as far as vision, but there was a disconnect when it came to implementing that vision. Both companies were spending R&D resources to try to tackle the same issues. Being one company unifies this effort and makes more efficient use of developer resources.

MS and Nokia were also marketing two separate things. While MS's goal was to promote the OS, Nokia's goal is to of course only promote the Lumia brand. They didn't really talk about Windows Phone itself. But with MS owning them, more focus can be given to the OS.

 

[Coolknight1968]

How is that going to work against the behemoth called Samsung? They are vertically integrated and sell loads of products over way more channels! If I am the carrier and I get better margins selling Samsung and Apple products, why would I do much business with Microsoft? Carriers don't care about the OS but about margins!

 

[Reflexx]

How is that going to work against the behemoth called Samsung? They are vertically integrated and sell loads of products over way more channels! If I am the carrier and I get better margins selling Samsung and Apple products, why would I do much business with Microsoft? Carriers don't care about the OS but about margins!

Nokia has just as many channels as Samsung. And now, that will be Microsoft's.

Also, with MS owning the production, we have some costs that are eliminated. No licensing fees. R&D costs are reduced. MS should be able to start giving carriers decent margins in time.

Samsung still has the advantage of making their own silicon. But MS has the advantage of owning its own ecosystem.

 

[Coolknight1968]

Samsung is working on its own OS... But with Knox they might not need it anytime soon.
They make their own SOCs, memory, displays, loudspeakers, switches, connectors, power supply units... They just assemble in low cost countries.
They can supply lots of goods that take advantage of the customer owning a Samsung mobile device...

 

[WanderingTraveler]

Samsung is working on its own OS... But with Knox they might not need it anytime soon.
They make their own SOCs, memory, displays, loudspeakers, switches, connectors, power supply units... They just assemble in low cost countries.
They can supply lots of goods that take advantage of the customer owning a Samsung mobile device...

Stop right there!

Remember, the sum of the (hardware)parts is always less than the whole if the OS is useless.

As for the supply chain, even if you're producing your own parts, that doesn't matter if you don't have enough, they're not competitive in the market, or it's simply not ready yet.

 

[Reflexx]

Samsung is working on its own OS... But with Knox they might not need it anytime soon.
They make their own SOCs, memory, displays, loudspeakers, switches, connectors, power supply units... They just assemble in low cost countries.
They can supply lots of goods that take advantage of the customer owning a Samsung mobile device...

Ok.

What point are you trying to make?

 

[Coolknight1968]

Ok.

What point are you trying to make?

That Samsung is a pain because they buy market share until they dominate, then they milk their dominance.

 

[Skunkwurx]

I just have to point out that they won't truely be competition to Ms, Samsung will be making WP phones as well as W8 pcs... In this deal MS also don't have to pay for patents owned by Nokia. The huge amount of knowlage making mobile phones (glance screen comes from Meego) is now Ms's... all that can be put into the OS... MS also gained a massive amount of WP devs that work on the OS, they will help speed up updates and increase the amount of features per update... Nokia dragged WP8 kicking and screeming to a point where I can't use a HTC WP due to the lack of extra features... all those people will be now dragging the entire OS with them... The Surface team was so small they barely had time for both RT and Pro... With Nokia they will be able to transfer a lot of the hardware knowhow... You forget that Nokia is king of tailoring phones to a budget... yes Samsung are vertical but not fully... Plus feature phones are going down the tube... but those people will by smartphones... so the factories will just switch... they just need to absolutely smash out phones at low cost with a small margin... 520 is right direction... imagine 430 $40-$50 WP device... they got a $15 feature phone with a month battery so yea I can see it happening and its possible now without the pair paying each other for patents and licencing... a prime example would be to replace all feature phones with WP7 device... low spec and cheap to make now as the S2 is single core and nearly three years old... it wouldn't jeopardise the experience as a cheap phone because WP7 was designed with that in mind... replace ashe with WP7 at least... Its also an entry into the ecosystem on the cheap...

 

[Villain]

the way I look at is very very simple

- Companies/manufactures are very few and the ones who do support WP put little to no effort into it in favor a free OS like Android.

- Nokia was eventual going to go under... they may have started producing Android devices BUT like everyone else they would be smothered but the flooded market like everyone besides Samsung.

buying Nokia saves Nokia more than any of it's other possible options and Microsoft can ditch the other manufactures who give WP no effort.

 

[BitPusher2600]

Here's a thought, though it kind of makes me sad to say because I love them, but part of me wishes MS would buy BlackBerry as well. The original smartphone makers, the security assets, all the patents they own, MS would could become the most secure and enterprise dominating platform on the planet. Between all that and their ownership of Nokia's hardware division, what a powerhouse.

 

[gsquared]

Here's a thought, though it kind of makes me sad to say because I love them, but part of me wishes MS would buy BlackBerry as well. The original smartphone makers, the security assets, all the patents they own, MS would could become the most secure and enterprise dominating platform on the planet. Between all that and their ownership of Nokia's hardware division, what a powerhouse.

Those patents they hold may not be worth as much as generally thought. If so I think someone would have already made a bid for them. Either that or people are waiting for BB to crumble and pick them up on the cheap. There next earnings release is coming 9/27/13. It likely going to be a shocker and not in a good way.

 

[a5cent]

MS would could become the most secure and enterprise dominating platform on the planet.

Based on the recent reports I've read from security researchers, WP is now the most secure mobile OS. BB may have a few security related features that WP still lacks, like VPN support, but that doesn't make WP any more vulnerable to exploits. Quite the opposite actually, because you can't exploit what isn't there.

AFAIK there is no exploit that is more easily achieved on WP than BB. Do you know of one?

 

[BitPusher2600]

Based on the recent reports I've read from security researchers, WP is now the most secure mobile OS. BB may have a few security related features that WP still lacks, like VPN support, but that doesn't make WP any more vulnerable to exploits. Quite the opposite actually, because you can't exploit what isn't there.

AFAIK there is no exploit that is more easily achieved on WP than BB. Do you know of one?

Nah, I wouldn't pretend to be *that* technologically educated, but I meant to say that in as many years as I've been around BlackBerrys, they hold lists of various approvals and certifications probably longer than my arm from various governments and entities around the globe. So in as such, I was only pointing out that BlackBerry was deep into that territory before anyone else, I should think they possess some technologies and patents that would be well worth MS's time. I am proud Windows Phone has met all of the FIPS criteria.

Call me crazy but I have this weird and possibly goofy belief that a big piece of Microsoft's success, or rather solidification, with Windows Phone lies in just how well they can rock the government sectors and enterprise sectors. I'm fairly convinced that globally speaking BlackBerry is still the most trusted platform in higher level government use, and if BlackBerry is to exit the market because of poor consumer numbers (total sales from the handset division), I would sooner like to see MS take their place in those segments than anyone else.

I'm sure all of this kind of crap has no relevancy to the average consumer but it fascinates the crap out of me Seriously, could you picture high level security and intelligence agencies sporting Androids? Better yet, picture a group of these people in secured environments sitting around the table and one says "so gentlemen, as national security is at risk, have we first deployed the latest version of iTunes?" Just being silly folks, forgive me

*EDIT:
Also forgot to mention that BB owns QNX. I'm sure MS could use that to their advantage as well. Other than a constant source of profit, it may be tooled to give MS a strong foothold into the automotive industry amongst others as well.

 

[iamtim]

So, your company is doing better than Microsoft, then?

 

[BitPusher2600]

So, your company is doing better than Microsoft, then?

Not likely, save for the government sector im not so sure.

 

[falconeight]

This is why Microsoft bought Nokia. Unknowingly Nokia has managed to put the entire compact camera industry on notice. The cameras that Nokia are putting in their phones are ahead of their time. The thought of Nokia getting picked up by android was probably killing microsoft and would seal the fate of WP8.