In the history of corporate acquisitions, Microsoft’s decision to pay $7.3bn for Nokia’s devices and services business in 2012 is looking like one of the most-regretted ones – certainly within Microsoft. The deal was done by former CEO Steve Ballmer before he stepped down, but his successor Satya Nadella seemed cool on the idea from the start.
Yesterday, we saw the culmination of that, as Nadella announced plans to cut 7,800 more jobs at Microsoft, while taking a writedown of $7.6bn on the company’s mobile phone business. “We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem including our first-party device family,” said Nadella in a statement. And yes, maths fans, this does mean that Microsoft has written off more than the entire price it paid for the Nokia divisions in 2012. While Microsoft isn’t stopping making phones (yet) the company has been rolling out more of its services on the dominant Android and iOS platforms.
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