Having bought Nokia for 7.17 billion dollars, Microsoft leads the Trojan horse home

Stephen Elop will return to Microsoft after the software giant Redmond paid $ 5 billion for the Finnish phone maker

Microsoft pays about 5 billion for the purchase of most of Nokia's phone business, as well as for 2.17 billion will get the patent portfolio of the Finnish company. And none of this should surprise us.

Thus, having acquired the mobile phone maker, Microsoft doubled its strength in the competition with Apple and Google in the smartphone market. The deal will allow the company to more closely combine the Windows Phone operating system with the hardware on which it works, expand the already massive patent portfolio regarding smartphones, which will allow the company to play the game with its rivals in a new way. She also bought herself a new CEO who needs it so much: Stephen Elop is the former head of Microsoft’s business division, who left Redmond in September of 2010 for Nokia’s top job.

Less than two weeks ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told everyone that he was going to leave his post in the next 12 months, and Elop, who becomes Microsoft’s vice president for Nokia affairs, has now become the obvious choice to replace Ballmer.
')
If Elop gets the position of CEO, it may be no better than Ballmer. At the very least, Nokia’s purchase is a good step for a company that is rapidly moving from desktops and laptops - the traditional Microsoft sphere - to smartphones and tablets.

Just like Google bought the manufacturer of mobile phones Motorola, making efforts to better compete with Apple - the company that makes hardware and software for its iPhones together - Microsoft bought Nokia. In recent years, Redmond has taken the habit of following Google and Apple, and it seems that nothing will change.

“Combining these two great teams together will accelerate the expansion of Microsoft’s share in the mobile device market and increase the profits from the phones, and will fully strengthen the capabilities of the whole family of devices and services of Microsoft and its partners,” said Ballmer in conclusion of the purchase announcement. Witnesses of this should be 32 thousand Nokia employees passing under the wing of Microsoft.

It seems that Microsoft will not leave efforts to accumulate a patent portfolio, which can crush Google, and possibly Apple. With the purchase of Motorola, at one time, Google also acquired a huge collection of patents on technologies used in smartphones, and now Microsoft again raises the stakes. After obtaining one of the world's largest patent portfolios, the company does not hesitate to declare that the patent system works quite well and as it should, and it intends to use the system to its advantage.

And, yes, it is quite natural that Microsoft has made such a move with respect to Nokia. In February 2011, immediately after 6 months after Elop headed Nokia, the Finnish company shifted its mobile phone business towards the Windows Phone operating system from Microsoft, as someone in the press noticed that it was something like a Trojan horse link . In an interview with Elop, they then asked if he was a Trojan horse for Nokia from Microsoft. He left the answer then. So there is nothing surprising, it seems everything was pretty predictable.

www.wired.com/business/2013/09/microsoft-nokia