
Why Apple should acquire Nokia - tristan_louis
http://www.tnl.net/blog/2012/10/06/why-apple-should-acquire-nokia/
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ansy
Wouldn't it make more sense for Apple to buy TomTom or Waze before buying
Nokia? TomTom is much cheaper and Apple already has a cozy relationship with
it. Not to mention Nokia is already in bed with Microsoft.

NOK: $10B market cap TOM2: $800M market cap

Even then, TomTom comes with a lot of baggage. A savvy operations expert like
Tim Cook would choke in disgust at the financial waste of such an acquisition.

Apple acquiring Waze makes the most sense. It only has 80 employees already in
Palo Alto. It is still private and only has $67M in funding. Its only product
is a mobile app. And its product is actually an advancement for navigation
rather than stuck in the old world.

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ralfd
Plus a hostile takeover of Nokia would probably start a bidding war with
Microsoft as white knight. That would cost way more than $10 Billion (if
successful, which is a pretty big if).

But Apple doesn't need to buy Nokia. They could just license their mapping
data like Amazon is doing.

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potatolicious
> _"Plus a hostile takeover of Nokia would probably start a bidding war with
> Microsoft as white knight."_

If I were in charge of Apple and more evil, I'd do it just for that. Start a
bidding war with the intention to lose it - and force Microsoft into an
_extremely_ expensive acquisition that it would have no hope of properly
managing or exploiting.

Then again, it _would_ be a $10bn game of chicken...

~~~
lostlogin
Out of curiosity, is such a move legal? Is there some sort of requirement that
one bid in good faith or some such concept? As that would be a fairly nasty
thing to do.

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ghshephard
It's not only legal, it's standard business practice. One of the recent
examples of this was when Google bid _against itself_ during an auction for
spectrum that it didn't want, solely to drive up the price. As long as you are
not colluding with the selling party to drive up the price (in which case,
this is illegal, known as shill bidding) - all is fair in an auction.

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lostlogin
Has Apple ever made any acquisition even a portion this size? It would be a
pretty big difference between Jobs Apple and Cook Apple to make a purchase
this big. Given that the likely targets would be maps and patents, the rest of
the business wouldn't be of much value surely? But winding up a company
Nokia's size would be a brutal hit that would inflict a lot of damage in many
different areas - to Apple almost as much as Nokia I'd guess.

Edit: Auto predict. Sigh

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tristan_louis
I think the NEXT acquisition, which brought Steve Jobs back, was in that
neighborhood from a capabilities standpoint. From a dollar standpoint, you're
right, it's substantially larger than what Apple has done in the past in terms
of acquisitions.

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frozenport
Seems like a popular blog title: [http://www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-
should-acquire-noki...](http://www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-should-
acquire-nokia-2012-10) [http://www.cultofmac.com/194130/why-apple-should-buy-
nokia-t...](http://www.cultofmac.com/194130/why-apple-should-buy-nokia-to-fix-
their-mapping-disaster/)

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protomyth
I doubt it would be allowed by the regulators, but buying Nokia also gives you
a lot of connections in places Apple does not have.

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tristan_louis
Apple could argue that they need to do it to counter the threat of Android.
With all the claims of more Android devices being out in the market, it's an
argument that could hold water with regulators and get such a deal approved as
a result.

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aaronharnly
Nice article. A formatting nit: Having link hovers italicize means that
hovering a link reflows the entire paragraph.

Example: <http://makeagif.com/i/6KTHGR>

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bbx
And it's actually easy to end up in some infinite loop:
<http://i.imgur.com/IDR64.gif>

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thisismyname
I actually think they should acquire a carrier like tmobile... They always say
they want to control "the entire customer experience from hardware to
software".

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callumjones
Considering Apple is a global company, it wouldn't make sense to acquire the
4th largest carrier if all they get is some spectrum and nothing else.

How would T-Mobile (USA) help the iPhone across the board?

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barredo
Honest question: Will the EU commission even approve the acquisition?

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Breakthrough
Most likely not, so good question. All that went through my mind when I read
the post title was "Why Apple should acquire [Some Company With Way Better
Maps]"...

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tristan_louis
Did you miss the part about patents? and mobile TV? and more patents? (oh
yeah, and maps too :) )

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callumjones
If the rumours are true about Nokia wanting to sell off their HQ in Finland,
it seems Nokia is a bit desperate for money.

This could mean at some point (in the interests of getting some cash in the
bank) Nokia could sell off their mapping division (NAVTEQ etc) to Apple.

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hayksaakian
Apple won't want products, considered by the market as inferior, to carry any
association to themselves.

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jmspring
Nokia Maps as well as photo technology in their cell phones are considered
quite highly. Nokia hardware is generally respected as well.

There are gems that Apple can mine.

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niggler
Funny that ALU is mentioned given that the ADR is trading near >10 year lows

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tristan_louis
Which makes a deal with ALU even more likely if no cash has to change hands
(ie. ALU gives APPL a large set of patents and get the networking business,
making it either #1 or #2 in telecom as a result). That deal would probably
bump ALU stock up.

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Apocryphon
How could Nokia suddenly do an about face heel turn away from Microsoft.

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manojlds
Hostile take over? Also, Elop's time is running out, so turning away from MS
is possible in more than one way.

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tnuc
It would be like Google buying Excite.

