I was wrong
So yeah, Microsoft bought Nokia. I did not see that happening. I originally titled this post, "I was completely wrong", but then I remember that my original argument was that Microsoft had no justification for producing their own Surface branded phone.
This technically isn't even remotely the same thing. But, a lot of the reasons I expected Microsoft to not produce their own Surface brand of phone run parallel with this.
Firstly, this isn't like Google buying Motorola. Motorola was dead weight. It was the single dumbest thing in the history of Google for precisely the fact that they paid $12B for a company that has actually landed them in more patent related trouble than it has gotten them out of. And even if you try to accuse them of being sneaky and lying about this not being an acquisition on the hardware front, I would Motorola has less brand power now than when Google bought them. It has done nothing to slow down Samsung's domination of the Android market or to stop the total forks like Amazon devices. AND Google paid $12B for that company.
By contrast, Nokia is the market leader in Windows Phone and has a proven and much more valuable patent portfolio. And for the hardware division and patents Microsoft is paying almost half of what Google paid for Motorola.
That first point above is the biggest reason I didn't see this coming. Back when the rumours were swirling about a Surface phone, I argued it would be a stupid move because Windows Phone had neither the market share, nor the momentum to risk relationships with partners. Samsung and HTC are the runners up and rumours that each is going to abandon the OS have been popping up off and on long before any such deal materialized. And simply adding a Microsoft owned device to the mix may have been enough to tip some of those out of the boat. But what Microsoft has done here is bought out the biggest player. There is now even less incentive for other partners to stick around, since it isn't Microsoft introducing a new product that needs to fight its way into the market. They now own the largest chunk of the market out of the gate. That is a very threatening position to be in.
Also, as with Surface tablets. Microsoft has a way of advertising their products as the "right" way, and their partners devices as failed attempts. And while I agree with that, it just keeps making Microsoft less and less enjoyable to work with as a partner I would think. And Nokia already gives that same impression of their devices in the Windows Phone market.
But, while I maybe didn't see it coming, I also think that maybe I should have. This deal, and the fact that it has been in the works for months explains a good many things. For instance, Windows Phone was the first Modern design language OS Microsoft put out, yet it seems to be behind the times when it comes to the approaching converging of all Microsoft OS's. As a corollary the updates, slow as they were, have slowed down even more, and many of the special programs they had surrounding the platform have slowly died off. All of this lead me to believe that Microsoft was planning to massively overhaul the OS again and didn't want to invest any more time than was needed, but it could simply be that until this deal was either finalized or vaporized they didn't have a solid idea of the direction that they wanted to take the product in.
And now, with this news, it seems clear that it is the latter. You don't buy a company for $5B when you've given up on the product its related too. I imagine that once finalized there will be a flurry OS changes and it will come much more in line with the pace Windows desktop users are familiar with. As with the Surface tablet, when Microsoft has ownership of the whole process, they tend to get a little more serious about making sure the software isn't deficient. Even the Surface RT gets plenty of love from Redmond and has evolved quite a bit from where it was when it first released. And reasoning is pretty simple; when you only build the software you can still blame the hardware vendors. When you do both and the product is a flop, you're the only one to blame.
So, as a Windows Phone user, I'm hoping this acquisition lights that fire under their butts.
This technically isn't even remotely the same thing. But, a lot of the reasons I expected Microsoft to not produce their own Surface brand of phone run parallel with this.
Firstly, this isn't like Google buying Motorola. Motorola was dead weight. It was the single dumbest thing in the history of Google for precisely the fact that they paid $12B for a company that has actually landed them in more patent related trouble than it has gotten them out of. And even if you try to accuse them of being sneaky and lying about this not being an acquisition on the hardware front, I would Motorola has less brand power now than when Google bought them. It has done nothing to slow down Samsung's domination of the Android market or to stop the total forks like Amazon devices. AND Google paid $12B for that company.
By contrast, Nokia is the market leader in Windows Phone and has a proven and much more valuable patent portfolio. And for the hardware division and patents Microsoft is paying almost half of what Google paid for Motorola.
That first point above is the biggest reason I didn't see this coming. Back when the rumours were swirling about a Surface phone, I argued it would be a stupid move because Windows Phone had neither the market share, nor the momentum to risk relationships with partners. Samsung and HTC are the runners up and rumours that each is going to abandon the OS have been popping up off and on long before any such deal materialized. And simply adding a Microsoft owned device to the mix may have been enough to tip some of those out of the boat. But what Microsoft has done here is bought out the biggest player. There is now even less incentive for other partners to stick around, since it isn't Microsoft introducing a new product that needs to fight its way into the market. They now own the largest chunk of the market out of the gate. That is a very threatening position to be in.
Also, as with Surface tablets. Microsoft has a way of advertising their products as the "right" way, and their partners devices as failed attempts. And while I agree with that, it just keeps making Microsoft less and less enjoyable to work with as a partner I would think. And Nokia already gives that same impression of their devices in the Windows Phone market.
But, while I maybe didn't see it coming, I also think that maybe I should have. This deal, and the fact that it has been in the works for months explains a good many things. For instance, Windows Phone was the first Modern design language OS Microsoft put out, yet it seems to be behind the times when it comes to the approaching converging of all Microsoft OS's. As a corollary the updates, slow as they were, have slowed down even more, and many of the special programs they had surrounding the platform have slowly died off. All of this lead me to believe that Microsoft was planning to massively overhaul the OS again and didn't want to invest any more time than was needed, but it could simply be that until this deal was either finalized or vaporized they didn't have a solid idea of the direction that they wanted to take the product in.
And now, with this news, it seems clear that it is the latter. You don't buy a company for $5B when you've given up on the product its related too. I imagine that once finalized there will be a flurry OS changes and it will come much more in line with the pace Windows desktop users are familiar with. As with the Surface tablet, when Microsoft has ownership of the whole process, they tend to get a little more serious about making sure the software isn't deficient. Even the Surface RT gets plenty of love from Redmond and has evolved quite a bit from where it was when it first released. And reasoning is pretty simple; when you only build the software you can still blame the hardware vendors. When you do both and the product is a flop, you're the only one to blame.
So, as a Windows Phone user, I'm hoping this acquisition lights that fire under their butts.
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