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Microsoft Buys Nokia’s Devices and Services, Stephen Elop Returning to Microsoft

By Brian Burgess

Updated April 16, 2024

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it was acquiring the Nokia Devices and Services unit. Microsoft is purchasing that unit for $5 Billion and is spending an additional $2.2 Billion to license all of Nokia’s patents. This is a bold step, considering Steve Ballmer announced he is leaving the company within the next 12 months. Nokia President Stephen Elop will be returning to Microsoft, which leads many to already speculate he might become the next Microsoft CEO.

Microsoft Buys Nokia Announcement

From the Microsoft Press Announcement:

REDMOND, Washington and ESPOO, Finland – Sept. 3, 2013 – Microsoft Corporation and Nokia Corporation today announced that the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, and license and use Nokia’s mapping services.

Building on the partnership with Nokia announced in February 2011 and the increasing success of Nokia’s Lumia smartphones, Microsoft aims to accelerate the growth of its share and profit in mobile devices through faster innovation, increased synergies, and unified branding and marketing. For Nokia, this transaction is expected to be significantly accretive to earnings, strengthen its financial position, and provide a solid basis for future investment in its continuing businesses.

Steve Ballmer also sent an email to all Microsoft Employees on the Nokia Deal:

“We announced some exciting news today: We have entered into an agreement to purchase Nokia’s Devices & Services business, which includes their smartphone and mobile phone businesses, their award-winning design team, manufacturing and assembly facilities around the world, and teams devoted to operations, sales, marketing and support.”

In the email to employees, Ballmer actually has some general questions most people will have about the deal and how it will affect the company. Here’s a couple of interesting statements Ballmer made:

• • Stephen Elop will be coming back to Microsoft, and he will lead an expanded Devices team, which includes all of our current Devices and Studios work and most of the teams coming over from Nokia, reporting to me.
  • Our operating system team under Terry Myerson will continue unchanged, with a mission of supporting both first-party and third-party hardware innovation. We are committed to working with partners, helping them build great products and great businesses on our platform, and we believe this deal will increase our partner value proposition over time. The established rhythms and ways of working between Terry and his team and the incoming Nokia team will serve us well to ensure that we do not disrupt our building momentum.
  • We plan to pursue a single set of supporting services for our devices, and we will figure out how to combine the great Nokia efforts into our Microsoft services as we go through the integration process.

What do you think of the news? Brilliant step by Microsoft? Does this mean Microsoft will continue to enhance its development of Windows Phone, a possible “Surface Phone” in the future? Elop the next MS CEO? More tablets?

A lot of questions for sure, and this story will definitely be fun for us to follow. Let us know your take in the comments below!