A huge announcement made today by Microsoft just surprised everyone. Nokia, the company which leaded the mobile industry for years, has now been acquired by Microsoft. Yes, you read correct. Nokia has been sold for a whooping 5.44 billion euros or $7.2 billion. Just a few weeks ago, Microsoft announced the retirement of its current CEO Steve Ballmer and today, it announced on twitter of acquiring Nokia’s phone business including some patents.
As per the deal, 32,000 Nokia employees including Stephen Elop will be transferred to Microsoft. Stephen Elop is no longer the CEO of Nokia. Now he has become the top candidate of becoming the next CEO of Microsoft as Ballmer is retiring within next 12 months.
What does this purchase mean?
Microsoft has bought Nokia’s phone business but what does it exactly mean? This purchase means that there will be no Nokia smartphone in future. “Lumia” and “Asha” trademarks will be transferred from Nokia to Microsoft. But a thing is to be noted that Nokia trademark will be retained by the company. In future, Nokia will only release S40 and S60 OS mobile phones and without Nokia branding till 31 December, 2015. Future smartphones will be Microsoft-branded not Nokia-branded.
Microsoft has stated that it has plans to triple the marketshare of Windows Phones by 2018 with the help of Nokia’s phone business.
Finally we conclude that this is the end of a golden era as there will be no smartphone from Nokia, only feature phones under 10-year agreement.
