The headline would be more accurate - though not as punchy - if it spoke of ashes of Nokia's device business, not Nokia as a whole. Microsoft took over the devices but the rest of the company is still there and very much alive. Net sales last year 12 732 M€, profit of continuing operations 1 171 M€. It's not as huge as in 2007, but not doing badly at all.
But indeed there is a lot of startup activity by people who've left Nokia; I joined one that failed, but I'm glad we tried. It would have gnawed my soul if I hadn't joined an attempt when there was the opportunity.
I think you -- and others who haven't checked, which is understandable -- imagine that after Nokia sold their handset business to Microsoft, nothing was left but a tiny little husk. If that were true, your assumption would probably be correct, but it isn't. Nokia ended 2014 with over 60,000 employees worldwide and nearly €13B in revenue. They're still a really big company. Sure, they make some money from patent licensing -- as do all companies of that size -- but the vast majority of their revenue comes from network equipment and services.
The better known part of Nokia for most people was their mobile phone business, which was spun off and sold to Microsoft who then drove it into the ground, but the other parts of the company are still there.
Microsoft only sabotaged, then bought Nokia's mobile phone division. The rest of Nokia is doing fine making networking equipment and various other things.
The narrative around Nokia’s “demise” is kind of a half-truth. Of course Nokia would have preferred to keep being wildly successful in the mobile phone business, but their other business lines were largely still successful. I think there’s a perception that Microsoft bought everything but the name when they bought the phone division, but that’s simply not true: Microsoft bought the only major division of Nokia that was losing money! They remain one of the biggest networking equipment manufacturers in the world, with over 100,000 employees.
tl;dr: I don’t think they’re very comparable to Kodak. :)
Nokia isn't dead though. They are a top-tier player in network equipment along with Ericsson and Huawei.
The company is profitable, its market cap is around $26 billion USD, and they recently announced a major deal to acquire Alcatel-Lucent. They seem to have survived the amputation of the mobile phone division quite well.
Yes it's not totally the Nokia that Microsoft bought but it's still infused with legacy Nokia's blood. And also recapturing market share after such an accident is quite a surprise.
I mean, they still exist. They may have sold off their phone division, but as long as Cisco and Netgear are still tech companies, Nokia is still a tech company.
No, Microsoft did an incredible service to all Nokia shareholders by buying the sorry handset business which had already failed in the market at that point.
You can blame Microsoft for not resurrecting a dead carcass but that's another thing entirely.
Nokia is doing quite fine manufacturing telecoms infrastructure.
Nokia exited the consumer market, so they fell off most people's radars. They've continued as a multinational network equipment company with over 100,000 employees, so they do still exist.
As far as I know, this is their first reentry into consumer products since getting out of the mobile phone business.
The mobile devices unit was on a rapid trajectory towards zero already in 2010. In an alternate reality where Vanjoki bet the company on Meego, that business would still be bankrupt today, just without the $4B payment from Microsoft.
Nokia kept the parts of their business that actually were worth something, and used the MS money to buy more marketshare in networks. It was a good deal.
Gone from the cell phone business, sure, but certainly not gone as a company. Big in telco equipment. After acquiring Alcatel-Lucent, I note that Nokia now has roughly the same amount of employees as Microsoft...
But indeed there is a lot of startup activity by people who've left Nokia; I joined one that failed, but I'm glad we tried. It would have gnawed my soul if I hadn't joined an attempt when there was the opportunity.
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