Later today, Nokia’s shareholders are expected to convene and vote on the approval of the sale of Nokia’s handset division to Microsoft, although it should be noted that this does not cover the approval of the Patent License Agreement or the HERE licensing arrangement as well. It is expected that there will not be much opposition to the acquisition by Microsoft as Nokia shareholders have seen the company’s share prices doubled since the deal was announced back in early September. Assuming all goes well with shareholders and regulatory boards approving the acquisition, the deal is expected to conclude in the first quarter of 2014.
Both Microsoft and Nokia have had a pretty special partnership with each other over the past few years, with Nokia pretty much putting all their eggs into Microsoft’s Windows Phone basket, a move which surprised many given that the Windows Phone platform was struggling at that time. While Windows Phone is still a pretty small player in the smartphone market, it has managed to grow, partly thanks to the efforts of Microsoft and Nokia, with the Finnish company rolling out some pretty impressive Windows Phone devices which have surprisingly caught on in emerging markets. What do you guys think? Are you for this acquisition, or do you think that Nokia should not have sold themselves to Microsoft?