This week, Nokia took the emotional decision to sell its smartphone business to Microsoft. We look back on what many would say has been the world’s greatest mobile phone company.
For years Nokia completely dominated mobile phones, with devices like the indomitable 3310. It then seized the newly-emerging smartphone market with phones based on the Symbian operating system. Along the way, most people who had a mobile phone had a Nokia at some stage, and the company pushed the boundaries of phone design.
The good times couldn’t last though. Apple launched its iPhone in 2007, and despite doing its best with the much loved Symbian platform, Nokia struggled to come up with a serious competitor. It toyed with a Linux-based replacement, but in the end, took the decision to base future smartphones on Microsoft’s Windows Phone.
As Nokia CEO, Microsoft veteran Stephen Elop made that decision, and set about the gory process of turning the company around. In the process, Nokia’s smartphone share went from nearly 40 percent down to three percent, and the company shed some 20,000 staff.
That may have been the inevitable result of Nokia’s previous failed approach, but it weakened the company, and its highly regarded Lumia devices needed investment, which they could only get if Microsoft took over that part of the firm.
That’s not the end of Nokia – it’s got other divisions. And Microsoft, at least, is optimistic about what it can do with the phone business.
We’ve updated a Nokia quiz we made earlier this year. To celebrate the company’s history…
And we have other quizzes as well…
And here is a good place to re-run a gallery of some of Nokia’s finest – and bravest – creations:
Microsoft faces formal EU antitrust charges over videoconferencing app Teams after concessions to European Commission…
Workers at New Jersey Apple Store vote against joining union as post-pandemic labour drive at…
Microsoft-backed OpenAI releases new AI model GPT-4o with voice conversation capability, desktop app and updated…
SpaceX prepares fourth Starship test flight, launches more Starlink satellites, shows EVA suit for commercial…
SpaceX and its contractors have left construction bills unpaid in Texas, angering many smaller suppliers,…
US to triple domestic chipmaking capacity and control 30 percent of advanced chips by 2032…