

Nokita: A Plan to Raise Billions and buy out Nokia before Microsoft - guillermovs
http://arcticstartup.com/2013/11/04/the-third-stage-of-grief-nokita-a-plan-to-buy-out-nokia-before-microsoft

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container
The name is a bit of a pun: it's a form of the Finnish verb 'nokittaa', which
means 'to raise [the bet]'.

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zokier
Because what Nokia needs right now is a board full of nostalgic nationalists
and yet another complete change of strategy and tech.

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basch
"Upon the closing of the transaction, Nokia would be restricted from licensing
the Nokia brand for use in connection with mobile device sales for 30 months
and from using the Nokia brand on Nokia’s own mobile devices until December
31, 2015."

Nokia sold Microsoft its production lines, and licensed its patents. Starting
in 2016 Nokia can reenter the cell phone market again. Basically Nokia gutted
its legacy capital, and is taking a two year break and reevaluating what
direction it should orient itself.

Nokia and Microsoft could not have made a more mutually beneficial deal.
Microsoft gets a thriving hardware division NOW, and Nokia gets cash and the
ability to reboot itself with no short term risk.

My point is, Nokia DOES need a change of strategy and tech, they will just be
taking at least two years to blow bucketloads of cash on R&D, instead of
worrying about short term end-consumer sales. Personally I'm kind of excited
to see what Nokia comes up with. (Everyone seems to also be forgetting that
Microsoft only purchased the mobile device business. Nokia's most profitable
sector was its Nokia/Siemens Networks, which it still owns. They also kept
their Patents and Mapping software. Microsoft get's a 10 year license with the
option to upgrade to a perpetual one. Nokia is going to make a TON of money
off one of the worlds largest companies, and Microsoft gets cheap intellectual
property. Win/Win.) The sky is their limit.

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sirkneeland
As a Nokia R&D employee (staying in Nokia), I'm glad other people are starting
to get the insane potential of New Nokia (with its retained R&D labs and
talent, its mountain of patents, and its newly found mountain of cash--and no
longer dividing attention between smartphone improvements and going after "the
next big thing")

That said, I'm still emotionally bummed at what happened to Nokia in the last
few years, and don't think it was inevitable that this had to happen to Nokia.

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basch
Maybe not inevitable but I prefer this path to following google down the
android hole. It's hard to be truly innovative when you let someone else hold
the reigns.

Content should be first. Search, maps, news, video editing, messaging
(basically everything Apple isn't that google, microsoft, and yahoo are.)

With a top tier software services stack, and exclusive content, it's a lot
easier to convince people to latch onto your hardware platform.

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jgreen10
Can someone explain why Elop did a bad job? No one was buying Nokia phones
anymore... they are now.

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Noughmad
It's more like the other way around. I used to know lots of people with Nokia
phones, both feature phones and smartphones. Now there are only iPhones and
Androids, I don't think I've seen a phone with Windows except in a store.

Besides, Nokia had great reputation as a quality brand. Some of their phones
were unbreakable. They've lost their reputation since their deal with MS.

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bentcorner
I'd like to see them continue on the path that the Lumia 1020 set - premium
camera smartphone. I think there's a good niche for them there that is very
hard for Apple to get into due to asthetics (a Lumia can have a bump on the
back for a large fast lens that would be very unusual for an iPhone).

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dragontamer
Case in point: The Lumia 1020 is using Nokia's relatively old technology. The
Nokia 808 PureView was released in Feb 2012, yet received very little
recognition.

All of a sudden, a year later, the Lumia 1020 seems like a "fresh, new" idea.
When in fact, Nokia has been marketing this EXACT SAME IDEA for over a year.
For better or for worse, the "Windows Phone" brand turns heads. Lumia1020 is
sticking with people a lot more than "PureView 808"

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freehunter
I remember the press going crazy for the 808, with one exception: it ran
Symbian. That was the only thing the press didn't like, and that fact kept
anyone from seriously recommending it. It was a tech demo, it was a great
camera attached to a phone that cost Nokia nothing to build (unlike the Lumia
1020). The 1020 was the real-world version of the 808, the version Nokia
wanted people to buy.

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davissorenson
> On this last point, they talk about leveraging a non-corporate image, like
> the Dudesons or Madventures, and throw “the largest events, gigs, and
> parties of human kind”.

Well that sounds really sustainable.

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Mikeb85
Compared to manufacturing costs and the revenues at stake, gigs, events and
parties are cheap.

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davissorenson
I meant more as a company culture.

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sz4kerto
> Corporate Culture Reboot to 2002

Wow, that would be very useful. Should we reboot Blackberry to it's 2008
culture, Microsoft to 1996, Yahoo to 1999?

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jevinskie
How do you reboot a company's culture? The culture is something that is
developed over many years, "rebooting" it would take quite a bit of time if it
is even possible at all.

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a3n
> How do you reboot a company's culture?

Management declares it, which causes corrosive cynicism.

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Mikeb85
Honestly I hope they succeed. Lumia 1020 hardware with Android or Meego would
be very enticing.

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Artemis2
This will probably not happen.

I think Nokia will help Microsoft to compete with Apple in the field of
smartphones, especially with custom-designed hardware and exclusive OS.

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3825
I don't know what the new Microsoft wants. What is it that they want to sell?
This is important and you can't just say "everything to everyone".

Amazon.com has a focus on retail. They sell stuff and the Kindle (including
Kindle Fire) line is just a medium to get it to the customer. If FedEx and
others kicked the bucket tomorrow and Amazon felt UPS was too strong as a
vendor, they'd probably start their own logistics department. If they felt
Comcast was too dominant, they'd probably want to do something about that as
well.

Google's focus is arguably its services (which it uses to push ads). Apple is
stubbornly a devices (hardware) company.

However, it is unclear what Microsoft's angle is here. Do they want to make
money selling software through OEMs? It doesn't seem like they want to push
prices of hardware down. They make too much money off of enterprise software
to cut that arm off. Online services does not make enough money to let it
completely cannibalize the software licensing cash cow yet.

I am glad I don't run Microsoft. I would be lost.

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wsc981
From what I understand Microsoft's goal is to become less of a software
company and more of a devices and services company[0]. In that light, the
acquisition of the mobile devision of Nokia seems to make sense.

And I guess it's pretty much the same strategy as Apple is following,
especially now Apple has made Mavericks and several Mac OS apps free of
charge.

[0]:
[http://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar13/shareholder-l...](http://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar13/shareholder-
letter/index.html)

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MikusR
I my be mistaken but the first sentence in that article is false. Microsoft
has not yet bought Nokia (although they think and act like they have).

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CmonDev
"Android and Linux products" \- please, no!

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vezzy-fnord
Yes, how dare they not make a Plan 9 phone!

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ZeroGravitas
Or just wait a couple of years until the block on using the brand on
smartphones is removed and sell the name to Xiaomi, Huawei, or Lenovo.

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ohwp
Could work but I think they should remember this isn't an OS thing but an app
thing.

BlackBerry and Nokia are still producing very good phones. But they failed to
jump the app train. Blackberry may survive since the new OS supports Android
apps. Nokia should work on this as well.

There are rumors that Nokia is still working on an Android Lumia.

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sz4kerto
Nokia won't be able to use the Lumia brand after the Microsoft deal is
finalized. And they won't have their phone manufacturing department.

So we can safely say and Android Lumia won't happen.

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ohwp
True, but rumors are that they were testing Android on the Lumia series.

But ofcourse rumors are just that: rumors ;)

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Zigurd
Probably not this proposal, but there are a couple scenarios that could lead
to Nokia being a takeover target:

1\. Microsoft's activist shareholders tanking the deal, perhaps by pointing
out that buying Nokia's factories and the whole legacy handset business
including Series 30 and Asha is pretty crazy.

2\. Nokia's board concluding that, now that they are rid of Elop, could reboot
Nokia themselves: spin Jolla back in, and start selling Sailfish and Android
smartphones.

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Geee
Nokia doesn't have money any more to develop Android phones on their own. They
don't even have money to continue with WP strategy on their own. Elop spent
billions of Nokia's money to boot Windows Phone and restructure the operation
as a Microsoft division. It was 'all in' with Nokia's money.

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adventured
Not accurate. They're flush with cash.

End of fiscal 2010, they had $16.4 billion in cash.

Today they have $12 billion in cash. With zero long term liabilities.

They have drastically more money than they would need to remake their business
and target Android.

If it didn't work, that might be the last shot they get at it however.

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Danieru
To be fair if I was Nokia and wanted to save myself this microsoft deal would
still make sense. It all depends on the contract terms.

Sell the smartphone division, aka Windows Phone division, to Microsoft. You
get rid of Elop and still scavenge a portion of the money poured into WP. Then
start a new smartphone division leveraging Android. On the employees front
most of your best former designers and engineers are still local just working
for Jolla or Intel. Buy Jolla for the hardware designer then partner with
Intel and get help on the engineering front. Hype the hardware at some
consumer electronics conference and try hiring back the few of your best
engineers which stayed and were included in the Microsoft deal.

Boom, you now have Daniel's untested and high risk plan for an Android Nokia.
Please vote for me as the next Nokia CEO.

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Geee
This is quite plausible scenario, if that's what they want. The truth is that
the smartest engineers have jumped ship a long time ago anyway to the network
division or other companies, and rest of them will leave soon.

Most of what Microsoft bought was truly just dead weight and Elop. Also, the
deal included just the employees and Nokia brand licensing, not patents or
other valuable IP, so it's not comparable to Google/Motorola deal, which was
mostly about patents.

The 'new' Nokia will soon release their new strategy, that'll be interesting.
They have already released information that they will stay in 'device
business' although they can't release phone products until 2016.

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jheriko
Doesn't finland also now have an enormously successful 'little' slice of the
games industry?

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greyman
Why? Those two are a pretty good match.

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blahbl4hblahtoo
It's really weird how people have started to anthropomorphize these
corporations and their products...why do this? If you could raise billions you
could start a new endeavor?

Nokia isn't an old friend of yours. There's nothing to "save". Raise your
billions and hire some of their designers if you like the work that they do.

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davissorenson
> There's nothing to "save".

To be fair, there's a lot of intellectual property at stake.

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basch
Nokia kept all its intellectual property.

