Nokia Microsoft Deal Details: Microsoft has completed its deal to purchase Nokia's devices and services unit. According to The Verge, Microsoft will pay €3.79 billion for Nokia's phone making business, plus another €1.65 billion to license its portfolio of patents. That's a total of around €5.44 billion (around $7.5 billion).
Microsoft will take control of more than 90 percent of all Windows Phones with Nokia's Lumia lineup, together with the low-end Asha brand, Android-based Nokia X handsets, and feature phones. Microsoft is planning to use the "Microsoft Mobile" name for the Nokia phone business, running it as a separate subsidiary.
Report from The Verge says, "Microsoft CFO Amy Hood admitted on the company's Q3 earnings call that the deal closure "is about four months later than the deal economics that we outlined in September." Microsoft was clearly aiming for January, and even publicly committed to completing by March, but regulatory approvals and other issues pushed the deal back. As a result, the original deal had Microsoft acquiring Nokia's Korean manufacturing facility and an Indian handset plant, but neither will be fully acquired. An ongoing tax dispute means Nokia will continue to operate its Indian manufacturing plant on a contract to Microsoft."
Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop returns to Microsoft and will take control of all hardware projects, including Lumia, Surface, and Xbox. Nokia has released one Lumia tablet running Windows RT, with this, Microsoft is also tasked with figuring out its tablet strategy once again. It is not clear what exact branding will be used on the company's Windows Phones going forwards.
Nokia and Microsoft have established the close, but any details on the full plan for how it's going to handle the integration of Nokia are not provided by Microsoft yet. Stephen Elop says Nokia's phone business has to "not only evolve to fit into Microsoft in general, but into an evolving Microsoft."
"Skype's integration into Microsoft was, and still is, a rather a slow process that has kept it largely separate from the software maker. Hopefully the collaboration means improved Windows Phone software and hardware in the future, something that Nokia and Microsoft had been working on together as separate companies until now. Whatever the deal brings, a big part of Microsoft's "mobile first" strategy is focused on Nokia's assets. Microsoft can't afford to be slow with its latest acquisition and risk Windows Phone's growth and sales numbers. Nokia might be over as a phone manufacturer, but Microsoft Mobile lives on and Windows Phone's future relies on it," says The Verge's Tom Warren.
