{"id":12926,"date":"2012-01-06T09:06:01","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T14:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=12926"},"modified":"2012-01-06T09:06:01","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T14:06:01","slug":"a-dinosaur-mating-ritual-microsoft-rumoured-to-be-buying-nokias-smartphone-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/01\/06\/a-dinosaur-mating-ritual-microsoft-rumoured-to-be-buying-nokias-smartphone-division\/","title":{"rendered":"A dinosaur mating ritual: Microsoft rumoured to be buying Nokia&#8217;s smartphone division"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=4042\" target=\"_blank\">ESR<\/a> has the scoop:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Just when you thought the smartphone industry couldn\u2019t get any more soap-operatic, everybody\u2019s favorite pair of aging drama queens &mdash; Microsoft and Nokia &mdash; may be at it again. There\u2019s a rumor, from a gossip with a good track record, that Microsoft intends to buy Nokia\u2019s Smartphone division.<\/p>\n<p>Inexplicably, there are even some people writing about the rumor who think this might even be a good idea. I mean, a good idea for Microsoft. It probably really would be a good idea for Nokia &mdash; they\u2019d get shut of their idiotic alliance with Redmond and unload a crappy, chronically underperforming division for a pile of cash (the rumormonger says $19 billion).<\/p>\n<p>But for Microsoft? Nokia\u2019s brand strength was probably the only thing keeping Windows-phone share as high as 5.2%. It hasn\u2019t been Microsoft\u2019s software doing it, that\u2019s for sure. Botched upgrades and a pathetically weak app ecosystem have only been the most obvious problems.<\/p>\n<p>If Microsoft bought Nokia\u2019s smartphone division, they\u2019d mismanage it into smoking rubble within two years. \u201cBut wait, Eric\u2026\u201d I hear you cry, \u201cthey haven\u2019t done too badly with the X-Box!\u201d Quite right they haven\u2019t &mdash; but that\u2019s because Microsoft runs that division as a cash generator, mostly hands off.<\/p>\n<p>Smartphones, on the other hand, are <em>strategic<\/em>. That means that if Microsoft buys itself a smartphone division, Steve Ballmer\u2019s going to poke his prong into it. Repeatedly. To, um, what\u2019s the B-school jargon? \u201cMaximize the synergies\u201d. They might even be treated to more demented-monkey ranting. Two years. Smoking rubble.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESR has the scoop: Just when you thought the smartphone industry couldn\u2019t get any more soap-operatic, everybody\u2019s favorite pair of aging drama queens &mdash; Microsoft and Nokia &mdash; may be at it again. There\u2019s a rumor, from a gossip with a good track record, that Microsoft intends to buy Nokia\u2019s Smartphone division. Inexplicably, there are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[94,547],"class_list":["post-12926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-microsoft","tag-smartphones"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3mu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12928,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12926\/revisions\/12928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}