It is official:
Microsoft is taking over Nokia's main handset business for 5,44 billion euros ($7.2 billion). This pretty much is a takeover of Nokia.
Nokia will continue to exist but it is unclear what their new core business will be:
.Nokia, which will continue as a maker of networking equipment and holder of patents,
Analysts have seen this writing on the wall for quite some time, and Nokia shareholders have expressed their doubts regarding Windows 8 as their mobile platform.
Important shareholders urged the current CEO. Stephen Elop, to switch to Android or find something else to do. This might have been a smart way of pushing the prize of the Nokia shares.
Microsoft could not have taken such a loss of prestige in the mobile phone market.
Nokia was the biggest company in the world - a short while ago - and could have bought Microsoft. In Finland there might be mixed feelings about the sale of their former pride.
Elop's decision to go for Windows 8 and leaving the Nokia developed software behind, could not regain Nokia's former market shares.
On the other hand this was probably the last and only opportunity for the Nokia shareholders to sell their shares at a good prize.
in many ways this is the story of the raise and fall of Nokia.
It remains to be seen if Microsoft can manage what Nokia did not; to make a healthy profit out of mobile phones with Windows software.
Stephen Elop will be going back to his former employer - Microsoft - and lead the "expanded devices" team from there.
Microsoft is increasingly getting more and more involved with hardware, this might be a problem for their current customers who will be facing competition from their software supplier.
It is not likely that Microsoft will buy all of them..
