Gadgetory

hello and welcome to inside scoop you need us we are trying something a little bit different today because we are in two different locations joining me via Skype this time is Josh Lowensohn senior writer for seen it Josh thanks for being with us great to be here so Microsoft and Nokia are all over the news at the moment Microsoft is buying nokia's handset business should this come as a surprise the deal between the two companies is valued about 7.2 billion dollars most of that is with Microsoft acquiring Nokia's phone business the rest of it is kind of some of the patents and intellectual property that no key owns which is pretty substantial if you look at it they have 8500 patent set that Microsoft is now getting they're also getting licenses from Nokia's deal with Qualcomm and they can use all those across all their products this is very similar to what happened with google bought motorola a lot of people expected that that deal was less the hardware as much as the intellectual property which gives them defense against other companies it might sue them it also kind of lets them bring over some ideas that nokia was building it its phones and all sorts of products from tablets to computers into the very core of at the software so it's pretty interesting when you look at it like that for folks who haven't read about the acquisition can you share the details how much money are we talking about here how big of a deal is this this really couldn't come as too much of a surprise to you you know this this big deal between the two companies happen in 2011 and it was kind of expected then that there would be a merger at some point so this is really kind of a completion of that deal that began a few years ago and it makes sense in a lot of ways for both companies you have microsoft which has this huge kind of interest in getting back in the smartphone market after kind of really faltering and trailing to catch up with companies like Apple and Google and you have nokia which also has fallen away but it's really kind of hedged their bets with microsoft and and put a lot of their momentum into developing phones for that company now we do know that recently Steve Ballmer announced he would be retiring so a lot of people are turning the conversation towards who might step into the CEO seat some people have named Stephen Elop who runs nokia as a top candidate is that a possibility yeah I mean right now he lock is looking like the prime candidate for this spot he of course is a Microsoft veteran and left Microsoft to go run nokia basically so if you look at some of the experience there he knows the culture he knows how it works of course a lot of things have changed since he's left he's also been deeply involved with their product with windows phone nokia really has pushed all their older momentum into creating devices for Microsoft platform and this is someone who knows the company pretty much inside and out because he had experienced there so what does this mean for nokia and microsoft customers will we see more commonalities between the two companies i think there's a ton of commonality between the two companies now especially when you look at some of the direction they can go now and blending those hardware and services together there really weren't any doubts the Nokia kind of had the inside track of what Microsoft was working on because of their partnership and how strategic it was but now that's going to be even more implanted and kind of important for nokia too i mean i can't see them at this point making devices for anybody else they are all windows phone now that's pretty clear also when you look at this it's not just phones it's tablets to one of the areas where Microsoft is kind of fallen behind especially with kind of the non success of the windows RT surface device so if you look at something like Nokia they have the hardware know how to really create those that kind of product that they might fit in that we've already seen some leaked shots of that so there's a lot of expectation these two companies are going to come together and make more than just phones now you mentioned that Microsoft has fallen behind certainly they have when it comes to tablet sales Windows Phones does this give them an edge can they increase their market share as a result of this acquisition there's really no doubt that the these two companies coming together is going to create a much stronger third-place contender against Apple and Google then any other company has I mean the big competition for third place is really between Nokia and blackberry of course samsung also makes devices but almost everything they do is Android air of course working on their own operating system called Tizen which you know i think is expected soon but they're not ready to run with that yet so this is really a key thing for nokia and microsoft to be working on a single platform and for customers really have one choice as far as it comes from those two companies so i think if you expected windows mobile to kind of died off this would kind of wash away any worries about that so there's a lot of benefit for consumers that these two are teaming up you know really bring in that third place spot and really tighten it up and hopefully expand it with other products all right Josh thanks so much for being with us for inside scoop I'm Sumi das thanks for watching