News Microsoft acquires Nokia's mobile arm

I've watched the whole PC this morning in finnish televevision and Nokia has completely sold the Lumia-trademark to Microsoft and is licensing the Nokia-trademark for the next ten years.

So the high-end smartphone-trademark Lumia is now to be called "Microsoft Lumia" and the cheap entry-level models using the Asha OS (Symbian) will still be called Nokia and Microsoft has to pay license-fees for using this trademark.

The more interesting part, noone has reported about so far is, that Microsoft and Nokia have built a huge datacenter in Finland. This will be even more interesting in month to come.

 

The Lumia 520 is pound for pound one of the greatest smartphones ever released. Only really the Nexus 4 (which is blatantly a loss leader) can compete at the price.

Microsoft done good.

 

Doesn't help that much, as the OS sucks.

I can't repeat it often enough... Nokia should've gone with MeeGo all the way, and the Nokia N9 was proof of that.

 

In what way does the OS 'suck'?

 

In an opinionated way

 

Yes let's exclude 78 million Xboxes sold

Good deal for Microsoft and with a bit more financial backing will hopefully allow Nokia to continue making quality hardware.

 

WinPhone simply doesn't feel that good. It's somewhat sluggish and the access to alot of stuff is buried behind aweful menus.

A ton of reviews see it that way.

Yeah, an oppinion shared by most of the reviewers.

 

Do you have links to any of these reviews? Reviews I've seen usually talk about how fluid and fast the OS is and I've not seen complaints about stuff being hidden. Having used a Lumia 800 and now a 925 i certainly wouldn't characterise it as 'sluggish' and it's no more difficult to find options than on Android or IOS. Have you actually used a Windows phone for any length of time?

 

I'm an Android man through and through, but I've had the chance to play with a couple of Windows phones and was thoroughly impressed, to the extent that I'd be happy to make the move.

 

Nice trolling JRS77 - without M$ Nokia would be about to dissappear anyway - they had literally nothing to compete with Android and iOS.

From - http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/03/nokia-lumia-800-review/
"If you'd prefer a very quick summary, then take it from us that this OS is fast, fluid and nice on the eyes. Its visual design is a boon not only for ease-of-use -- particularly for people with poor eyesight -- but also in terms of its sheer sassiness, which will be appreciated by anyone who wants to stand out from the iOS and Android crowds."

Get over it, Nokia totally failed to develop an OS that was anywhere near what their rivals were putting out and were sinking, just like Blackberry. It was either adopt this or Android, and with Elop at the helm its no big surprise a deal was done with M$. And in fact, it made sense - M$ needed a strong, well known hardware partner and Nokia needed a OS that was actually functional.

 

I personally had to use Omnia 7 for about a month when my Galaxy Nexus order was delayed, and then later i tried to use 8S for a while as my main phone - and while both are usable for basic tasks and such, they are still so much more limited than Android, at least in my use case scenario.

I see one positive thing on this anyway - it will probably make distribution of Surface tablets much more global, as they took over the wast array of Nokia representatives, distributors and distribution channels with this trade, so maybe we could expect the next generation of MS tablets outside of North America and E5 too .

 

I've not had my hands on a 925. I thought it was just a 920 but in a different shell. I prefer the 920 shell (even thought it's very chunky). The polycarbonate shell on my Lumia 800 is rock solid and the plastic surround protects it really well.

Another reason, I don't want to get a windows 8 phone and then find that I can't get the windows phone 8.1 update. It'll be windows phone 7 all over again. So I'm trying to wait until windows phone 8.1 is released. Plenty of new phones should be released on it too.

 

Am very happy with my 925, feels just as solid as my 800 but not as chunky as the 920. Camera is top notch as well.

As for updates to 8.1 I'm pretty certain MS have stated it won't be the same as 7.8 to 8. All WP8 phones will be able to be updated to 8.1. Altho the GDR3 update due later this year should bring support for 1080p screens and quadcore processors so if you're not in a hurry it might be worth waiting to see what is announced over the next few months.

 

Oh wow... you pulled out one professional review there to make your point. You know they get paid, do you?

I'm speaking of user-reviews found in every online-shop right below the product, and usually the WinPhone OS doesn't get that good reviews there.

 

Well they can sell it, they just simply stop wanting to do so.

remember the sidewinder branch of gaming input devices, rocksolid, top of the line, and they just....quit.
Zune, didn't sell well, but was supposedly quite good, they quit.

X-Box, well, it isn't really produced by Microsoft isn't it? (I believe the factories are ownes by Flextronics)

Nokia's were never "cool", but usually very well built, I foresee an end to that.

Just like the ericssons stopped beeing the toughest little phones around when Sony took em, and where they are now.

 

iOS: "I just want it to work with no fuss. (That and I've spent thousands in the app store)"

Android: "I just want it to work with no fuss, but I also want the option to dig under the surface and break it when I'm bored."

Windows: "For once, I am not a sheep buying a Microsoft product. Also, I just want it to work with no fuss."

QNX: "I'll defend Blackberry to the death because work have been giving me these for years. But deep down I know it's crap."

Mobile Linux: "I have hair growing out of my ears, and my personal hygiene is inferior."

Everything else: ""

Reviews of the the better Nokia handsets have been pretty much universally good regardless of the review site, and if you trust user reviews for this sort of thing you're a fool. They generally get posted by muppets within a few hours of their purchase, when they are still struggling to work out how to unlock the phone.

 

Just switching from iOS (iPhone 4) to WP8 myself (Lumia 920). I'm pretty platform agnostic, but having had an iPhone since 2009 and having spent a lot of time on my wife's Samsung Galaxy II and now HTC 8S, I must conclude that Windows Phone is one of the slickest, most well-thought-out mobile OS's out there. True story.

Significantly, my wife who is indifferent at best towards (and loathes at worst) smartphones and held on to her Motorola Razr until it literally fell apart, absolutely loves her HTC 8S. She really groks WP8, and that is saying something.

Don't think of it as losing Nokia --think of it as preserving it. After all Google bought Motorola and there were no wails of despair about that. In fact, we now have the Moto X: one of the best, most beautifully designed recent mobiles out there, IMO. This is a good thing. Also expect much closer cooperation between MS and the parts of Nokia that weren't acquired: network services, location services.

All this angst about how Microsoft cannot sell decent hardware is bull. Microsoft has been dismal at marketing it, partly because of an ambivalence about their position as a hardware company (now resolved, it seems), and partly due to lack of experience and poor organisation (being addressed). Nokia has good experience in bringing hardware to the market so it may teach Microsoft something.

This is not going to mean unemployment for 36000 employees, by the way. They are just moving to a new company. It makes no sense to acquire a business and then lay off the people who made the business, bless you just want the name, patents and physical assets. Microsoft wants the skills as well.

 

I've got a bottom end Nokia 610 and it's fast and fluid on that, it can only be better on faster devices... I've also got an HTC One from work, lovely device but given the choice I'd still prefer WindowsPhone.

 

so... does anybody know what this means when it comes to Qt? I really hope it doesn't suddenly lose its LGPL.

 

Seems another good reason for M$ making this move is because they make less than $10 per WP, where as they stand to make over $40 under this new deal.
http://allthingsd.com/20130902/microsoft-confirms-it-gets-less-than-10-per-nokia-windows-phone-sold/