Tuesday 3 September 2013

Microsoft Buys Nokia: Checkmates itself?

In the game of chess, a player makes a move thinking about the 5 moves ahead. A move can be defensive or offensive. It can also assure mutual destruction and keep things status quo. If Microsoft was playing a game of chess it just might have checkmated itself with its acquisition of Nokia.

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What Microsoft does not get from Nokia!

Microsoft has bought the only company committed to the Windows platform. This means this purchase will not add more devices running on Windows but just more integration.

Why will an OEM spend money and time investing in a platform when the company has its own manufacturing line up.

This is how Samsung will look at having Windows OS on its phones. It will look at every dollar it gives to Microsoft, as giving a dollar to its competition Nokia.

Microsoft just might have made the Windows platform incredibly unattractive to smartphone manufacturers.

Microsoft is not Google

Some online chatter compared Microsoft's purchase of Nokia with Google buying Motorola. Motorola could be on one level compared to Nokia as a fallen giant of the mobile phone manufacturing industry, there is not way Microsoft compares well with Google.

When Google bought Motorola, it had a very successful OS in Android. Android was the most popular OS running on smartphones around the world.

Even though Samsung and HTC might feel threatened about Motorola being a Google entity now, it still will think ten times over before leaving a popular platform like Android. Leaving the Android eco-system for any OEM will have a price attached to it. Microsoft's Windows eco-system is nowhere close to being like Android.

Microsoft itself has many issues to resolve internally. Their current CEO is quitting soon and a successor is still not selected. They are yet to figure out a way to get some sort of foothold in the tablet market (Nokia itself hardly figures in the tablet market).

At this stage it looks like Microsoft just might have become very desperate and bought Nokia. And a desperate move is seldom a very good chess move.

What are your views on Microsoft acquiring Nokia? Do drop in your comments.

Trivia: Pratiek Parekh made an educated guess about Microsoft wanting to buy Nokia 2 years ago on our blog. Hear more about it here.

-- This Post Microsoft Buys Nokia: Checkmates itself? is Published on Devils Workshop .





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