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Nokia acquired by Microsoft

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Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#521

Post by consultant23522 »

shubb wrote: post #451
simba-hiiipower wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, in one of their releases they specifically mention the transaction will be completed using offshore funds. and while i'd generally like to see some movement on policy to encourage large us-based multinationals to bring-home more of their offshore earnings (for reinvestment domestically), the current environment does play-out nicely for foreign m&a - which is at-least (in my opinion) a better use of funds than d…

Money from work and sales outside the US should be repatriated and invested domestically, just because the company is notionally based in the US? Sounds a tad imperialistic? I think getting companies pay tax in the US for sales in the US would be less internationally antisocial...

I would argue that there's a hand full of countries where being based is more than "notionally" beneficial. The U.S. is definitely among them. I'm not suggesting that the tax should exist but let's not pretend that being based in the U.S. is not dramatically different/better than being based in most other countries you could throw a dart and hit on a map. It's not as if these companies couldn't just move their headquarters off-shore to avoid the issue altogether.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#522

Post by hippiefahrzeug »

tanzam75 wrote: post #484
hippiefahrzeug wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me: which company has just been sold for peanuts after trying the WP strategy?

Motorola tried the Android strategy, and got sold for even fewer peanuts. Specifically, for $12.5 billion, minus $2.4 billion for the set-top box business, minus $3.4 billion in net cash, minus $2.5 billion for tax assets. Actual cost to Google: $4.2 billion. Compared to Nokia: €5.4 bilion = $7.2 billion.

Nokia was massively larger than Motorola. (Look at historical market cap data. In year 2000: Nokia > $200B vs Motorola ~$80B).

Nokia was the market leader in smartphones before they went WP. They were larger than Apple and Samsung combined and then some more. Motorola wasn't a big factor in the smartphone business. Google bought them for their patents, certainly not for their mismanaged smartphone strategy. So, Motorola went from 0% smartphone market share to roughly 3% with Android. (Nothing to write home about, but you can't blame this on Android.)

Nokia on the other side was at 34% when they decided to go all in on WP, and look where they are now: 3%. Nokia's fall is of historic proportions. Motorola's fall doesn't even come close.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#523

Post by pedalpete »

capkutay wrote: post #478
pedalpete wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what world your on. Elop would not have been in the running as CEO of Microsoft. I don't believe he would have had enough experience at that time. Was there anybody other than Ballmer and ray Ozzie epwho would have been considered. He's actually brought Nokia back from the brink and kept a sinking ship somewhat afloat, in my opinion. At the same time, I don't think he is enough of a visionary to lead Mic…

Ok well...MSFT could either choose to focus on enterprise or pick up Nokia and their CEO as a pat on the back for only losing 25% of its value every year. This plan seems more like a hail mary to catch up to apple. It could pay off but its certainly the riskiest and least logical route. I think there's significant room for innovation and profit in enterprise tech right now and much more room for failure in mobile.

Giving up in the mobile space isn't an option. In these situations, Microsoft had to take action. If they just give the mobile sector to apple and google, they also potentially weaken the windows ecosystem itself.

Microsoft may be slow, but they have enough momentum to make a small dent in the market and grow from there.

Taking risks is a necessity.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#524

Post by rayiner »

pm90 wrote: post #491
rayiner wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about that when it comes to phones, though?

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. The users 'care' even if they don't realize it. Developers care because they can continue to target a platform that they are familiar with and which has been tested well.

Sure, that gives a platform a certain level of inertia, but I don't know how much it matters. Developers will go where the users are. It's not like in the PC space where Windows managed to really entrench itself based on compatibility with mission critical apps. Who cares if closed-source means you have to get a new Twitter client?

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#525

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #308
venomsnake wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next year is always the year of the Linux desktop. But I begin seeing worries in people where MS is pushing the OS (mostly privacy concerns) and is seems running windows in a hypervisor with VGA card passed trough is becoming more and more popular.

> and is seems running windows in a hypervisor with VGA card passed trough is becoming more and more popular. I know absolutely nobody who does this.

I do something similar but only because of some Windows only educrapware that was foisted upon me. Well, and LabView.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#526

Post by metageek »

hippee-lee wrote: post #129
macspoofing wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are a lot of people who would have picked up the attractive, well built, well engineered Nokia devices if they had the platform of Android. Yeah maybe. There is no guarantee that the outcome would have been more favorable than being bought out by Microsoft. >Apple obviously is very much in a battle with Android ... Apple already lost to Android. Last count, Android had 80% of the market. There is zero chance o…

Can we not talk about this in terms of war and battle? It is the business of selling consumer electronics, same as it has always been. You do explain your position well but I feel the references to war and battle water it down. No one has been killed in the development of phones. I get that the MBA crowd read the art of war and it's practical knowledge seeped into popular discussion. But the endless reference to war…

Back at Netscape, Jim Barksdale hated the term "browser war", on the grounds that a war justifies extreme behavior. He didn't want us believing the browser war meant we should be breaking the normal rules.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#527

Post by Already__Taken »

bad_user wrote: post #375
3825 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nokia n95 was announced in September 2006 and available in March 2007. Its ad slogan was "It's what computers have become."[0] What stands out in the second paragraph of the article where they highlight the capabilities is "the ability to install and run third party Java ME or Symbian mobile applications". By contrast, the iPhone was decidedly not a computer. Not in the traditional sense. It is apparent in hindsi…

> It is apparent in hindsight that people don't care about the downsides of being inside a walled garden There's a danger in repeating such things as if they are facts, as the people that matter (e.g. developers, investors) start actually believing them. It's bullshit of course, but I don't blame you for being intoxicated by such propaganda. When the iPhone was released, its success had much to do with it feeling lik…

Anecdotal but I know a surprising amount of technically illiterate (perhaps too mean) people with jailbroke iphones.

One guy doesn't even have an email address.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#528

Post by tanzam75 »

hippiefahrzeug wrote: post #522
tanzam75 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motorola tried the Android strategy, and got sold for even fewer peanuts. Specifically, for $12.5 billion, minus $2.4 billion for the set-top box business, minus $3.4 billion in net cash, minus $2.5 billion for tax assets. Actual cost to Google: $4.2 billion. Compared to Nokia: €5.4 bilion = $7.2 billion.

Nokia was massively larger than Motorola. (Look at historical market cap data. In year 2000: Nokia > $200B vs Motorola ~$80B). Nokia was the market leader in smartphones before they went WP. They were larger than Apple and Samsung combined and then some more. Motorola wasn't a big factor in the smartphone business. Google bought them for their patents, certainly not for their mismanaged smartphone strategy. So, Motor…

Installed base became meaningless after the iPhone changed the game. Everybody started out at 0% of a brand-new market -- including Nokia. That's why it's known as disruptive innovation.

Nokia's mistake wasn't in killing Symbian for smartphones in 2011. It was in not killing Symbian in 2009 or 2008. But it's hard to give up that market share and start from zero.

In cases of disruption, high market share is actually a disadvantage, because you stick with your existing product longer than you should.

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#529

Post by at-fates-hands »

JVIDEL wrote: post #455
AndrewDucker wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that an Android phone is a commodity. All phones are commodities. Going with Windows Phone just meant that they were a commodity with an incompatible OS.

Exactly, smartphones were relatively rare before 2005 or so, but even before the iphone there were a lot of people with symbian, BBs and treos, and now dumbphones are mostly of the disposable kind.

>>>> Exactly, smartphones were relatively rare before 2005

Actually DoComo pretty much made the smartphone what it is today. Japan was selling "smartphones" way back in 2001. It was the incredible revenues they generated that got the attention of US carriers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1835821.stm

Re: Nokia acquired by Microsoft

#530

Post by shubb »

consultant23522 wrote: post #521
shubb wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money from work and sales outside the US should be repatriated and invested domestically, just because the company is notionally based in the US? Sounds a tad imperialistic? I think getting companies pay tax in the US for sales in the US would be less internationally antisocial...

I would argue that there's a hand full of countries where being based is more than "notionally" beneficial. The U.S. is definitely among them. I'm not suggesting that the tax should exist but let's not pretend that being based in the U.S. is not dramatically different/better than being based in most other countries you could throw a dart and hit on a map. It's not as if these companies couldn't just move their headqu…

>>It's not as if these companies couldn't just move their headquarters off-shore to avoid the issue altogether.

Which is always the risk when you call for something like the parent wants.

Huge companies, like Microsoft, have offices all over the world. Microsoft has about equal numbers of workers, and revenue, inside and outside the US. The same could be said for Apple. That makes the US a huge market, and it makes sense they are based there. But if being based in the US put them at a disadvantage in the rest of the world (e.g. they had to pay tax twice), it is likely they would move, at least notionally.

There is a big problem with companies that don't pay tax anywhere, or nominate very low tax countries. A coffee company in Europe famously buys coffee cheap with a subsidiary in a low tax country, then sells it to its other business units for so much that those units claim to run at a loss. No coffee ever passes through its small but extremely profitable office in the low tax country. That's annoying, as it puts the burden of subsidizing welfare salary top ups for its underpaid workers on me.

To suggest a solution - The answer here is to tax sales in the country the buyer is in, rather than taxing profit. Sure, it'll kill some low margin companies, but the overall economy will work better because it won't be so skewed by how easily a particular industry can dodge tax. I suspect financial services would do particularly badly.

In terms of this merger, if the tax was on transactions between companies (and I think it should be, though smaller), if Microsoft France funded the deal, it should pay tax in France.

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