Nokia: Elop Raises the White Flag and Sells to Microsoft

 It's all over for Nokia CEO Stephen Elop and his 32,000 employees in the core of Nokia - their mobile phones (handset) business. After several years of struggling to turn the business around in the face of intensive competition from Apple, Samsung, Google, Huawei and others, Elop has decided the best option is to sell the business to Microsoft.

Lots of terrific coverage about the Microsoft takeover (by outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer) in these videos - packed full with business strategy gold dust!

In some ways the takeover is similar to Google's acquisition of the mobile handset business of Motorola. The Guardian sums up Microsoft's strategy quite neatly as follows:

"The acquisition marks the boldest step yet taken by Microsoft in its recently announced strategy of moving decisively into the device-manufacturing business, so that it can design for the software and hardware of its products. It is a move Ballmer hopes will bring the kind of success currently being enjoyed by Apple."