Back in 2011, during the "burning platform" announcement, Nokia had $13b in cash alone.
With over 45% of the smartphone market, I'd guess its phone division should be well over $20b at the time.
Microsoft just bought Nokia's phone division for $7.2b.
I wonder if anyone still thinks Elop wasn't a trojan with this very goal from the start.
Well, there will always be the ones saying Nokia was already doomed "regardless".
This was Finnish value being transferred to the US, through and through. I'm dumbfounded to see how some finnish supported this.
The idea of support seems to be in terms & conditions; Nokia still keeps the trademarks and patents and Microsoft rents the trademark to use in phones during next ten years. Nokia again is forbidden manufacturing own wireless devices until 2015. Nokia still keeps the network and other divisions, so only the phone & devices division is sold.
So, theoretically, you could think that they cleaned up the table and with in 2016 they might be starting all over again, with completely new team.
These supporters seem to forget that company loses all manufacturing resources and all distribution channels, not to mention starting from scratch with workforce.
I personally see this ending only one way; Microsoft kills the Asha line, which is the only profittable line (and reason for this does not need to be big, let's say that Series 40 OS is not invented in Microsoft, so off you go.) and then thinks still same way as with surfaces that they are big enough to able to push phones themselves better than Nokia did. Eventually Lumias are burried just about to next to Kin, Zen and SurfaceRTs and listed in "don't talk about these" list. Microsoft has promised invest 250 Million Euros to Finland to be founded wireless development center, which has been said meaning that they are here to stay. However, I personally don't see that such a big deal to them, which could not be scrapped suprsingly fast in few years if Lumias keep falling behind expectations.
For the real Nokia, the sale are of course good thing from corporate point of view; now they can consentrate in business which brings some money in company. It is not just hip and cool anymore; no one is interested about the technology behind the networks which makes the mobile wideband connections possible and so wireless devices can develop further.