Nokia: The beginning of the end?

[John Kotches]

A couple of stories of note about Nokia, the most visible launch partner) of the latest windows phones:

Moodys: Nokia debt at junk status

Nokia cutting 10K jobs by 2013

Tough times ahead for the Finnish company. While sales of the 900 phone have been good, it hasn't changed the overall health of the company.

Is anyone else on the same page as me, that sees a collapse of Nokia as extremely likely?

 

[mike123abc]

Maybe Microsoft will pick it up on the cheap like Google did for Motorola. They probably have a lot of nice patents that MS could use in the on going war...

 

[John Kotches]

Mike:

That's certainly a possibility. Historically, Nokia has made great products. They had (don't know if they still do) some Checkpoint Firewall appliances that were outstanding, they had some of the best CRT monitors available... I think they spun the monitor business off into Eizo but could be mistaken. They were huge in mobile, especially in Europe, with the Symbian based handsets.

Long term, are they viable or worth purchasing? Time will tell.

 

[TheForce]

Maybe Microsoft will pick it up on the cheap like Google did for Motorola. They probably have a lot of nice patents that MS could use in the on going war...

Why would any company buy a failing has been? Would you put your money into this company? I'll continue to buy Apple. The riskiest phone stock I bought is Sprint. I wonder if I'll ever make any money on that one. At least Mot. had patents which is what Google bought of value.

Sent from my iPad3 using SatelliteGuys app

 

[navychop]

I figured they were toast some time ago. A shame.

 

[mike123abc]

Why would any company buy a failing has been? Would you put your money into this company? I'll continue to buy Apple. The riskiest phone stock I bought is Sprint. I wonder if I'll ever make any money on that one. At least Mot. had patents which is what Google bought of value.

Sent from my iPad3 using SatelliteGuys app

Mainly for patents and to have at least some way to produce a windows phone. Nokia is still too expensive for its patents, but they have a lot of them.

 

[Peter Parker]

Nokia has a lot of patents. It is also still a player in Europe and the dealership arrangements there are probably worth something. Having said that i would not touch it as an investment(it is at $2.50 + a share and I see it headed much further south) but it might make sense for another cell phone maker or someone considering entering that arena to do so. So yes it is conceivable that Microsoft could buy them to keep Windows phone viable but I remember Microsoft's last attempt at making and sellinga phone (the Kin) and they gave up on that ina mater of weeks.

 

[mike123abc]

WSJ's Smart Money suggesting MS buy Nokia Why Microsoft Should Buy Nokia - SmartMoney.com

Microsoft's new offering, Windows Phone 7 (now 7.5, and 8) gets rave reviews. It is light years away from the old Windows Mobile/Pocket PC system, which was so bad that I wanted to smash my last device with a ballpeen hammer (actually I wanted to throw it at Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer, but he wasn't around).

The problem with Microsoft's new operating system is that even though it's pretty good, it is a late entrant into a market already dominated by Apple and Android.

That's where the Nokia takeover could come in.

Nokia is still a massive handset manufacturer: It sold 71 million devices even in the first quarter. And Nokia is good at hardware. Maybe the best "smartphone" I ever had was a Nokia e61 I bought back in 2006. Great voice quality, great keyboard, great connectivity. I once dropped it from about six feet on a London sidewalk and it bounced. Try that with your iPhone (or rather, don't). The problem with the Nokia devices was always the tricky and finickity and annoying Symbian operating system, which was designed by Finnish geeks for Finnish geeks.