Eldar Murtazin, Editor of Mobile Review and a man who is widely regarded within tech circles as someone with an extraordinary amount of inside information, dropped a bomb on his personal blog today. He claims to have knowledge that Microsoft is in talks to purchase Nokia’s handset unit and that the deal may close by as soon as the end of this year. Let’s break down why such a move would be a huge deal. First, Windows Phone would cease to look attractive to competing handset makers in much the same was that Nokia owned Symbian and tried to peddle it to the mobile industry, but was shunned by everyone except, oddly, the Japanese. Second, Microsoft would finally start a credible fight with Apple and RIM, who are the only two handset makers who make a mobile phone from top to bottom, meaning they own both the hardware and software, and even have services on top to boot. Third, the part of Nokia that will remain post acquisition will be tasked with doing … this we can’t figure out. It might effectively mean the death of Nokia as a Finnish company.
Now of course it goes without saying that you should take this rumor with a massive mountain of salt, but let us remind you that Eldar was right when he predicted Nokia would go with Windows Phone. As crazy as people thought he was, he called Nokia’s move months before it actually happened. Considering how successful Microsoft is with the XBOX, and they also make some damn fine input peripherals, having the desktop software giant take over Nokia might not be such a bad thing after all. Smartphone sales will soon eclipse PC sales, if they haven’t already, so an acquisition of this caliber would present a total reboot of the company’s strategy, which until now has been heavily enterprise focused.