Microsoft bought out Nokia, the Finnish smart phone company for €5.44 billion in this April, however there is not a good outcome from it so far.

 

At the beginning people thought that this acquisition of Nokia is for Microsoft to catch up with the 2 major smart phone enterprises, Apple and Google. Apple has been manufacturing their own hardware by themselves, but outsourcing the devices from a Taiwanese company. Google’s main sales item “Nexsus” series is manufactured by Lenovo in the result of an acquisition of Motorola mobility by Lenovo. Now Google is focusing solely on production of software. Thus both of these enterprises are specializing in one thing rather than trying to cover every thing within their companies in order to achieve a high quality in a main component of their productions. This resulted in a great success in both businesses.

 

Whereas Microsoft is trying to focus on smart phone business by release of windows phone however their attempt failed due to the lack of progress in other device makers. Before Nokia worked together with Microsoft, their Windows programmed smart phones were like existing Android phones with a little bit of modifications. By using Nokia’s main smart phone platform for the windows phone, they got a bit of increase in sales but it was not innovative enough to make a huge impact on Android or iOS smart phones. This failure to gain popularity resulted in layoffs of Nokia workers.

However, I think without the acquisition of Nokia, the situation now could have been worse for Microsoft. Nokia was not a huge device maker, yet they had an established brand image so it drew some attention from the public. But now Microsoft is trying to shift away from Nokia’s name. This might decrease Microsoft’s share value because Nokia’s brand name is still recognized by consumers all over the world except the US.

 

Public view of Microsoft is that it is an enterprise that produces goods that are targeting more on other enterprises than the general consumers, thus their company reputation is more of a conservative image. I believe by incorporating different hardware brand, Nokia, they can change such company image. Under Nokia’s brand they can make an innovative production targeting general consumers and at the same time they can use the same technology, human resources ad supply chain they can provide devices targeting enterprise under Microsoft brand name. This new way of bringing business could possibly result them to achieve a great success in both markets.

 

Bibliography

“Microsoft to Phase out Nokia Name.” BBC News. N.p., 22 Oct. 2014. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.

Johnson, Luke. “Microsoft Completes Nokia Takeover.” – News. N.p., 25 Apr. 2014. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.

the photo is from

SOUZA, ELSON DE. “Microsoft Compra a Nokia: Entenda O Que Pode Mudar Nos Próximos Anos.” TechTudo. N.p., 3 Sept. 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.