Nokia Android phones are coming early next year | Mashable

December 1, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Fallen mobile phone giant Nokia is about to (attempt to) rise again next year with new phones — this time based on Android.

The plan has been known for a while, but it’s now official, as the company itself confirmed it in a press release Thursday.

The new Nokias will be manufactured by Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile and sold by a Finnish company called HMD Global, which will have an exclusive global license for the Nokia brand for the next ten years. This means another Android player has emerged in the overcrowded market, albeit one with a familiar brand name.

The story of the new, new Nokia is somewhat complex, so here’s a little background: Microsoft bought Nokia’s struggling mobile phone division in 2013 for $7.2 billion but it ditched the Nokia brand the following year, instead calling its mobile phones Microsoft Lumia.

Nokia Is Plotting A Big Comeback to the Phone Business | WIRED

May 18, 2016May 18, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

THAT BRAND YOU like is going to come back in style. Maybe.

Today Nokia announced that it will license its brand to a new Finnish company founded by former Nokia execs. The company, Global HMD, plans to use the Nokia brand to sell Android-based phones and tablets.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, which acquired Nokia’s handset line in 2014, is selling its feature phone line to manufacturing giant Foxconn’s FIH subsidiary for $350 million. These “dumb phones” will also carry the Nokia brand; HMD will sell and market them for FIH (got that?).

Nokia: We’re In No Rush To Get Our Brand Back On Phones | TechCrunch

February 23, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

After exiting the smartphone market dramatically by selling its mobile making division to Microsoft for $7.2 billion back in 2013, Nokia has hinted it is looking to return to the phone business by a different route — taking advantage of a clause in its sale agreement that allows it to use the Nokia brand on handsets again starting from this year.

The company has a history of radical reinventions. But returning to a market where it excelled for so long is something it views as an “opportunity” given the residual brand recognition of Nokia and handsets, CEO Rajeev Suri said today. He was speaking at a Nokia press and analyst briefing in Barcelona this evening, ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show which kicks off tomorrow.

Microsoft Declares War on Middle Managers and Khaki Pants | Businessweek

July 18, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to Microsoft, Nokia employees—you’re out of a job.

So came the message on Thursday as Microsoft MSFT announced plans to fire as many as 18,000 people over the next year. The bulk of the layoffs, about 12,500 people, will come from the Nokia NOK devices and services business that Microsoft officially acquired in April. Most of the rest of the firings will affect people with overlapping jobs, furthering new Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella’s pledge to create a leaner, meaner, faster-moving organization. Grrr.

It’s not easy firing this many people—especially when you’re Microsoft, which hardly ever fires anyone, and when you’re dealing with Finland, which also has a thing against firing people. The company did it with two memos and a press release. The first memo came from Nadella, who explained how the layoffs fit into the strategy outlined in his memo from last week. The second came from Stephen Elop, the former Nokia CEO and now Microsoft executive, who never really managed to revive Nokia’s business, delivered the pride of Finland into the clutches of Microsoft, and must be feeling some measure of guilt about all this. Right? A staggering 40,000 Nokia employees had already lost their jobs over the past few years, as the phonemaker transitioned from global market power to Harvard Business School case study.