Another Death in the Bloodbath: Google Buys Motorola Mobility

Well, I did say we can expect fireworks and that there are too many competitors in the smarpthones space. Today Google bought Motorola Mobility for 12.5 Billion dollars. Part of why the timing, is no doubt the 'sale' that is going on at Wall Street right now, because of the big share price declines, major corporations are on discount if you ever wanted to buy a rival.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR GOOGLE

First, this is a big move obviously. I think this is a good move by Google but one that gives it a conundrum. Lets first see what they get. Motorola had a deep patent portfolio in the mobile space. As Google has said tis future is completely tied to mobile, and as the rivals like Apple and Microsoft have been suing Google and its Android partners about patents issues, the patent portfolio is one major asset and reason to do the acquisition.

Secondly, they get a major handset maker. Motorola is a top 10 smarpthone maker and a top 10 overall 'dumbphone' maker. Motorola's current production level is of the capacity of about 8-9 million handsets made per quarter (30-45 million per year) of which currently two thirds are smartphones. Motorola has very aggressively been shifting its total production from dumbphones to smartphones and Motorola was the first major brand to go solely Android (leaving Nokia's Symbian alliance and Microsoft's Windows based operating systems). But just recently Microsoft has spoken in public that they 'might' want to join Microsoft Phone 7. I think now its obvious to see, that was a bargaining ploy, to force Google to boost its price and make its move, before Motorola signed any deals with Microsoft..  So remember, this puts Google now in the 'big leagues' with such rivals as Nokia, Samsung, LG, HTC, RIM and SonyEricsson - and gives Google more control of its handset division than Apple (who outsource their handset production to Hon Hai ie Foxconn).

Thirdly, Google gains a major handset brand in the two biggest national markets for smartphones - USA and China (Motorola is third bestsellling handset brand in the USA, and third bestselling smartphone brand in China). But in most of the rest of the world, what Motorola once was (had 21% market share) is now mostly gone. Yet, if Motorola had the carrier relationships and manufacturing and shipping capablity to support some 500 of the 600 carriers of the world - far more than say Apple - with some Google money and organization and 'intelligence' they could quite possibly now recover. But a brand is very valuable and in these big markets, Google would be wise to keep the Motorola brand alive for a while (perhaps shifting to Google over time) and in the rest of the world, might well want to shift more rapidly to Google/Nexus branding and just use Motorola's sales organization or what remains of it to break into those markets.

WHAT MOTOROLA GAINS

Motorola has been making losses for years now. So Motorola has not been able to capitalize on whatever clever ideas they may have had, and have been far sub-optimimized because at all times they've been struggling to just try to recover profitability. Its not like smartphones cannot be hugely profitable - look at Apple, HTC, RIM etc - and also low-cost 'featurephones' or 'dumbphones' can be profitable look at Samsung, ZTE and (the recent past of) Nokia. So its not like Moto was in a bad industry, they were definitely a diamond in the rough, that was just VERY BADLY mis-managed, as I've chronicled here on this blog for example many times.

If Motorola gains first of all some injection of cash, to hire good staff, to provide long-overdue salary increases to critical staff, to keep best staff from exiting the company etc - and to help boost Motorola marketing and sales activities (stop the bleed from the rapid decline of Motorola's once overwhelmingly powerful sales organization) - there is no reason Motorola could not have a resurgence similar to what it did with the Razr in the middle of the last decade. Google has shown a great interest and ability in innovating in the handset space both via Android and via the various Nexus phones. What Google didn't have was the sales organization and carrier relationships - now suddenly Motorola becomes - SuperMoto! Able to leap over buildings and more powerful than a locomotive (like Superman). There are no doubt many pending ideas sitting in Motorola's R&D and also at Google's R&D, that could be superphones as soon as next summer/autumn.

ANDROID ARMY

So what of the other Android makers? Samsung, HTC, SonyEricsson, LG, ZTE, Huawei etc.. Many of them had been recently in a 'partenrship' with a handset maker who controlled the operating system - I am talking of Symbian and Nokia. And we could see how quickly they all abandoned Nokia and Symbian when Android came along. I think its pretty clear, that all of these makers would prefer that Google is not both the owner of Android, and making a handset. So we come to a conundrum.. What should Google do.

One obvious choice is that Google keeps full control of Motorola, and becomes a full rival to the others of the Android army. Android already has 45% of the total smartphone market, with a vibrant Android apps space etc. Google can spin this story to the Android partners that Google will use the Motorola patents to protect the partners so they don't need to pay Microsoft (Microsoft earned more from Android patent fees than from Windows Phone 7 sales in Q2) or Apple (who just blocked Samsung's Android based Galaxy tablet PC from being sold in Europe) etc. But this is a murky area for a company who says 'do no evil'.

If Google holds 100% ownership of Motorola handsets and sells either Moto or Google branded smartphones, then I think several of the current Android army would seek alternate platforms. Samsung has its own in bada, and I think regardless, this move reinforces Samsung's HQ that the decision to invest in bada was the right move and they'll just migrate ever more of their smartphones from Android to bada. Expect bada to 'grow' into more mid-price and even premium phones soon. And remember, Samsung is the biggest of the Android makers.

HTC is the other big Android maker who just a few months ago complained about how badly they were doing in Microsoft based phones and that they'd shift ever more production to Android. They now feel certainly a bit like being stabbed in the back. So I'd expect HTC to shift some attention now back to Windows Phone 7. SonyEricsson might well also add some new focus to WP7.

Then it gets interesting with the rest. LG, ZTE and Huawei have all committed to MeeGo (the newest OS developed by Intel together with Nokia which was supposed to be Nokia's new OS). Because MeeGo is Linux based like Android, it will be a far easier change from Android to MeeGo. I would expect solid commitments to MeeGo by some of these players and possibly some pick-ups by MeeGo from other handset makers who suddenly dont' feel so happy about Google and Android. LG also is in the WP7 camp but I think because of their loss-making, the far cheaper option is to shift now to MeeGo rather than WP7.

IF GOOGLE DOESN'T KEEP MOTO HANDSETS

But I think there is a further twist that is possible. Google knows its handset manufacturers do not want Google in the race, that is what Google heard when they launched Nexus One. The carriers also are dubious about Google and fear it might be getting too powerful. Google might be best served to help Motorola onto its feet, and then float Motorola as an independent phone maker soon. And to communciate this very loudly and clearly to its Android family.

This is how I'd do it if I was Google. First, do a lot of cross-pollination of Google and Motorola talent. Give Moto a big long-term low-cost loan (like how Microsoft gave a loan to Apple to keep Apple alive) and then take a group of senior Google engineers and staff who have a particular love or interest in handsets - and send them onto 'sabbatical' for a year or two, to provide short-term brainpower to Motorola. A luxury billionaire-version of an 'apprenticeship' where the staff would remain Google employees, but would get to go do a year or two of 'real work' designing the next generation of superphones for Google - with of course shared patents coming out of that for both Google's and Motorola's shared intellectual property - and these staff would be guaranteed a return job at Google if they wanted to come back in a year or two. Meanwhile Google would also actively headhunt some of Motorola's best talent to pick to join Google..

Then prepare Motorola Version 2 to re-launch as an independent stand-alone handset maker (minus its patent portfolio and some selected elements and some premium talent). Use Google resources to produce a set of superphones for late 2012 time frame that should be able to propel the recovery of Motorola. And once that is done, when Motorola's handsets are back in making profits and back to growing market share, with a hit phone - then sell Motorola and launch it to the stock market back as an independent company - but of course one where Google would retain a small share like 20%.

This way Google would get the best of all worlds. One, they get their patents. Two, they get to 'fix' Motorola which for no conceivable reason is struggling in a market with a strong brand, good sales organization but producing losses year after year. Three, they gain a strong participant in the Android army, but as Google is open about the intent to launch Moto soon to be independent, they would not anger the Android army. And four, to the degree premium smartphones are a VERY lucrative hardware play (witness Apple) by helping Motorola position itself against Apple (powered by Google), Google could gain (20%) out of that opportunity.

Thats what I'd do. Else there is the danger that Android will go the way of Symbian haha.. And the shuffle behind the scenes today is very intensely Intel with MeeGo, Microsoft with Windows Phone 7 and even HP with Palm/WebOS recruiting handset makers to shift away from Android - and these three are all big giants who can afford to put some dollars on the table too - money that a loss-making LG or SonyEricsson for example could be very happy to get..

WHO IS NEXT

So, Motorola Mobility, which has annual sales of 13 Billion dollars was now sold for 12.5 Billion dollars, where its patent portfolio was a very major part of what made the deal so attractive to Google. Who is next? Nokia is the obvious target, their market cap is down to 20 Billion dollars, their annual sales are at 56 Billion dollars (last year) more than 4 times as big as Motorola's and Nokia has the deepest patent portfolio of any tech giant in the mobile space. They also have several highly valued assets that could be sold independently to make the purchase price of Nokia cheaper - ie Navteq the mapping, navigation and advertising unit; NokiaSiemens Networks the networking unit; dumbphones, smartphones, the Nokia brand etc. And on the inside track is Microsoft, no doubt Steve Ballmer's investment bankers have had a plan in place to buy Nokia from the start, just in case the Stephen Elop-led Nokia partnership turned sour at any point. Like Motorola, Nokia too is now making losses so its a very obvious take-over target and as to a Wall Street discount, Nokia is down 58% from its recent peak of early February, thanks to the mismanagement of new CEO Stephen Elop.

RIM is another obvious target, a former smartphone giant who has recently turned into losing sales. But RIM is still making profits. And compared to Motorola and Nokia, RIM is no patents powerhouse.

Its also possible that SonyEricsson might go, but then I think the obvious buyer would be Sony, who might want to stop the partnering with the Swedes, and take full control of SE. As SE is making losses again, Ericsson might be willing to throw in the towel, if Sony made the offer sweet enough.

HTC is a long-shot, they are growing and making profits. Their patents portfolio is not big so here is a rather expensive rival who would not have very much beyond simply the smartphones maker itself.

Who might be in the game? I think we can easily look at the top 10 top 12 biggest tech companies and find many of them, maybe most of them, eager to consider a purchase. In order of size the top 10 is: Samsung, HP, Hitachi, Siemens, Panasonic, IBM, Sony, Toshiba, Apple, Microsoft. Then we have plenty more in the mid-field like Intel, Amazon, Cisco, Fujitsu, NEC, Philips etc. If Siemens or Philips are experiencing some sellers remorse about getting rid of the mobile handset business (and looking at Apple in an envious way) this could be a fast way to get back. If a bit-player in mobile who once was big, like say Panasonic or NEC would want to get into it at full steam, this would be the fast way. Or some of the tech companies who may have had regrets for 'missing out' on the smartphones opportunity like say Cisco or IBM, this could be the fast track into that game. And obviously for those big players who seem to have mismanaged their opportunity in the past, like say HP and Microsoft - now they could buy a really big smartphone player and get back into the game for real.

Also don't forget the billionaires.. What if Carlos Slim the richest person on the planet - who already knows how important phones are to his business - he made his billions in the mobile telecoms operator/carrier business. Would he want to have America Movil branded handsets to his specs? Or say Hong Kong's richest man, Lee Ka-Shing who owns an empire from harbor installations to yes, mobile phone operator/carrier businesses of the Hutchison Group and Three branded operators in a dozen countries. He even actually owns a small handset maker in Europe called INQ Mobile. If he felt like buying one of these players - like say Nokia (and selling parts of it) - suddenly his early play into handsets would be amplified massively.. Keep a couple of the big Nokia handset factories like in China, India, Brazil etc- and sell parts of the piece he wouldn't find worth keeping etc..

NOKIA NEXT

I do think Nokia is the next on the chopping block. Nokia is a juggernaut, a profit engine that is being ruined by moronic management right now (remember, in the first 5 months of Stephen Elop, before he announced his crazy Microsoft strategy, Nokia was growing sales, growing revenues, growing average sales prices, and grew profits by a Nokia record; and Nokia had a hit new smarpthone OS version of Symbian called S^3 which was so successful in the first quarter it sold 5 million units worldwide - ever since Microsoft's Phone 7 has launched, it hasn't sold 5 million total up to now! and now we have seen, they even have a second even more desirable OS in MeeGo that only a lunatic CEO would refuse to sell when Nokia sits on the hottest pair of superphones, the N9 and N950 that would return Nokia to profits instantly. All that it takes is to remove Elop from the CEO chair and put any recent MBA graduate to run Nokia and it generates profits again) 

And I do think we'll see a visible public rush for it, not this sudden secret sale like Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility. Microsoft will have to bid, their whole mobile future is sitting on that one card they have left to play, Nokia. And equally, if there is a public contest, I think Intel would be foolish not to get into it - the perfect solution for Intel is to buy Nokia and abandon the Microsoft strategy, and for Intel to get its MeeGo OS based Nokia handsets as they wanted - such as the magnificent N9 and N950 that Nokia now is not giving most of the world. We could easily see four or five big tech giants bidding for Nokia.. In almost any case, whoever buys Nokia will sell off NokiaSiemens Networks - and Stephen Elop's career hangs in the balance of whether Microsoft gets him - any other buyer will fire Elop on Day 1 of owning Nokia.

Then I think the biggest loser of the Nokia Sweepstakes would probably almost instantly go use their money to buy RIM haha..  And we might see HTC also sold in the aftermath.

This kind of environment might also see some other 'friendly' mergers, as suddenly some of the players get very big. We might see other big mergers in this environment in the tech space, where one player feels they are losing out on the mobile space. What of Dell for example? Or HP's rather weak showing in mobile after they bought Palm. What of Cisco who has often played around mobile but still play only on the infra side and in a limited way in mobile.

Ok. Thats my thinking right off the news. Exciting times in the Bloodbath Year 2: Electric Boogaloo. I am pretty sure this is not the last merger/acquistion in this mobile space and we may well see a very public race for the carcass of Nokia. Stay tunes, same Bat-Channel, same Bat-Time..

Comments

[peter]

@LeeBase, nokia's weak is at its marketing.

symbian users had been loyal to nokia, not because of its brand, but for the true value delivered to consumers by nokia.

a gps that is always at service truely across the time and space on our planet surface.

a longer battery life

a rock solid phone

an excellent digital camera

an average UI with a bit below par web browser/email client for symbian

an excellent UI with on par web browser for Maemo N900, Meego N9/N950

---------------------------
all nokia needs to do is some marketing on USA,
and speed up products release cycle.

Unfortunately Jorma Ollila hires a crap Elop to destroy nokia from inside.

[Victor Szulc]

"think about if you go aboard and use your big screen android phone as your gps, you'll be charged a huge wireless data fee from carrier.

In usa, all big carriers have removed unlimited data plan. put a rate like 2GB/$15/months"

LOL! Do you have any idea what an enormous amount of map-data that is? You clearly have very limited experience with map-apps as well as modern smartphones...

Here's some news. NOBODY CARES ABOUT BUILT IN MAPS...
If you can afford a 4-500$ cellphone as well as a monthly contract, CLEARLY the couple of megabytes of maps and map-data a normal user would download a month is of no concern whatsoever. If it is, there are a number of free apps available that can solve that problem.

After they realized that people couldn't be bothered to pay for Ovi Maps, Nokia tried for years to pimp their phones with "Free built in Maps!" As you might remember, consumers just shrugged and reached for an iPhone or Android handset instead.

[peter]

@Victor Szulc, "Here's some news. NOBODY CARES ABOUT BUILT IN MAPS... "
Consumers do care.

Consumers sacrifice GPS stuff to purchase android is becsuse criminal ceo Steven Elop put an end to symbian in 2/11. not the opposite.

[peter]

2-11-2011 terroists (Elop/Ollila) attacked nokia from management inside;
9-11-2001 terrorists attacked world trade center from outside;

[Eurofan]

Yes, I guess Tomi does refuse to allow some people to post successfully if they annoy him. I am sorry I have annoyed you, Tomi. Believe me, my only interest lies with the good people of Nokia and my hope that as many of them keep their jobs as possible and also that Nokia stays independent, completes its Linux project, or equally good, becomes a subsidiary of Apple, making Linux phones and sharing patent portfolios.
I left my best ever post several times at the end of Tomi's Coining Terms blog comment stream but it would never post even though it would tell me it posted. So I am blackballed. Anyway, Yuri, I 100% agree with you, reached the same conclusions by my own brain power, Google has made a brilliant move and will take care to protect the profitability and market share conquests of its partners, as confidently expressed by HTC president in recent news release. Set to boxes, high end and developmental handsets sold without carrier subsidy, low end hand sets bringing google search to the masses. MMI will be a profitable subsidiary, no-one will loose their jobs, the partners will be protected against subsidized MMI smartphone encroachments, and Google will get even more eyeballs. It was all about the patent portfolio. Set top boxes, having an in house gadget beta lab, and getting google search to the huddling masses -- these are all gravy. Tomi, I'm sorry I quoted you so much if that's what annoyed you. I really liked your analysis, that's why I quoted you. I just think the Navteq purchase was big stupid and sent Nokia to ruin and Elop. Luckily, Apple now is clear to buy Nokia in 14 months, because Google gets to buy MMI. Loss making companies are allowed to be bought out in consolidating industries. Apple will get the patents, will sell Navteq on principle of its being not a core competency, and will run Nokia as an independent Linux phone maker and dumbphone maker for idealistic and anti Microsoft reasons. Elop will take a special interest in Nokia and protect it form his court like Alexander II did with his Principality of Finland before WWI. Steve Jobs statue will be erected next to Alexander II's in Tuomiokirkko Square in Helsinki and ex-President Halonen will cut the ribbon. Steve Jobs always wanted to complete his NeXT project. Nokia will give him a chance to do that with Meego.

[Eurofan]

Wow, since this posted, I will try another. Following is my Coining Terms post broken in two parts. I am so excited to be back playing in the sandbox again. Tomi should charge me by the word. I would pay!

[Eurofan]

Happy Monday to @PERUS and to @symbianlover. Remember guys, happy people are on vacation right now, not at work. Since grumpy PERUS wants us to quiet down about Mr. Stupid, current CEO of Nokia, and his Leadership Team of circus clowns, and to instead provide thoughts about strategy and future tech and simbian lover, too, is interested in the future value of Nokia, I give you two guys a link to a Bloomberg article discussing what Nokia is worth if it is broken up into parts and sold. This article is from June 3, 2011, so the analysis is still pretty fresh. The juicy numbers start in the 15th paragraph or so headlined "Relative Value":
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-03/nokia-breakup-worth-52-gain-to-battered-shareholders-real-m-a.html
As I said in my comment above, Navteq, which Nokia paid 8.1 billion US dollars for in 2008, is worth today 1.5 billion euros. It will take Elop at least seven quarters to waste as much value in missed profits, lost sales, axed key people, and disorganization to core engineering programs, as OPK and Ollila threw away on Navteq in 2008, exactly three years ago. Navteq has been profitable and has grown revenue every quarter since Nokia bought it. Nokia simply overpaid for it like a country bumpkin small time gold miner visiting a San Francisco brothel for the first time with his gold nuggets. Those billions and billions of euros raised in years when Symbian was still a British product and faced no opposition but Windows Mobile and Blackberry could have bought a complete modern smartphone OS in 2008 at a time when Nokia needed a modern smartphone OS the most, the year Google's Android entered the picture to compete with iOS, Windows Mobile and Blackberry. Since Nokia was working on Maego since at least 2005, those billions of euros could have purchased a one year moon shot to put a modern touch screen UI on top of a completed Maemo with bang up hardware engineering on a touch screen phone by the summer of 2009, or a two year moon shot to put a completed and robust Meego, a polished UI and bang up hardware on a superphone by the summer of 2010. Or simply keep that cash because the smart phone OS war was heating up and the top competitors, Apple, Google, Microsoft and RIM were each sitting on piles of cash. Instead Ollila in his genius bought a free navigation feature and a pretty in-phone maps app (which is what Navteq amounts to) to attach to Symbian and green lighted the effort to bring Symbian into the touch screen world, efforts which largely failed and efforts which ballooned to such metastatic coding bloat that the combination of faulty phones, crashy phones, silly phones and coding overhead drove Nokia to Elop.
Free navigation doesn't sell high end smart phones. If you want navigation on your smart phone you pay $5 to somebody for a navigation app. Faultless UI and rock solid OS including browser, messaging and email, is what sells high end smart phones. Navteq. Navteq. Navteq. It was all down hill for Nokia from the Navteq acquisition. That acquisition was Nokia's Waterloo. Elop had nothing to do with that mega disaster. That was, I think, Ollila, Mr. Big, the Big Idiot of this Greek tragedy. The guy who picked Elop, the Little Idiot, to take over from OPK after the genius acquisition of Navteq failed in eight quarters to turn the battle against upstart iOS and upstart Android.

[Eurofan]

Elop can't sell Navteq because it's part of his deal with Microsoft to help beef up Bing Maps and the WP navigation app. But when Elop is shown the door because Nokia's WP phones are actually of material interest only to some residents of Washington State who like the idea of taking a picture of a book cover and being transported to the appropriate Amazon book page and to some sausage eating Germans who like the idea of tiles blinking with information within a bigger rectangle that matches blinking tiles and rectangles they may some day see every day on their work computers, regardless of how much hype Elop and Balmer throw against the wall, Nokia should first thing sell or spin off Navteq with prejudice, to Microsoft if necessary. If it were possible it would be nice when Nokia sells Navteq to make a giant Navteq wooden horse and burn it in effigy on some seashore for two days to celebrate the good riddance of the most stupid acquisition before Elop. The Navteq giant wooden horse bonfire could absorb all the bad juju of Ollila and Little Ollila, Mr. Big Flop and Mr. Little eFlop, and their sycophantic hangers on including their leadership teams, whether they be on the Board or in the management ranks, or both. Good riddance to all of the idiots who have risen under Ollila and Elop to suck at the teats of the Great Nokia Cash Cow of 2000 to 2007.
Navteq can be spun off or sold easily because it is profitable and revenue has shown continuous growth since 2008. Nokia simply overpaid for it by some 400% and discovered that Navteq did nothing to stem the tide against iOS, Android and Blackberry adoption.
Cheers to grumpy PERUS. Your stock got a little bounce today thanks to Google's investment in patents owned by MMI. Too bad that bump won't last. Nokia's patent portfolio isn't worth even half the current bumped valuation of NOK. NSN does nothing but lose money. Navteq is good for 1.5B euros. So really, Nokia is overvalued at the moment, in my opinion, and is going to lose money for the next six quarters, at which point its value will more closely approximate the value of its patents and the spin off value of NSN. Navteq is not something that is getting more valuable over time. So enjoy your bump, Mr. Grumpy PERUS.
Here's the money quotes from the Bloomberg article IMHO:
"Michael Mullaney, who helps manage $9.5 billion at Fiduciary Trust in Boston, said splitting up Nokia won’t change the fact that it’s still a 'value trap' because it hasn’t found a way to compete against the iPhone and Android. Nokia is also unlikely to attract any buyers now because the shares have further to fall, according to American Century Investments’ Michael Liss. 'It’s hard to do a sum-of-the-parts analysis when the floor is falling out and you don’t know where the bottom is,' said Liss, a Kansas City, Missouri-based fund manager at American Century, which oversees $109 billion. 'The stock has quite a ways to go before' someone makes an offer, he said."

[Eurofan]

Oh, and symbianlover, actually the Google buy out of MMI is very bullish for Android partners since it means Google gets a patent war chest behind it to help defend Android against Apple and Microsoft (and Nokia). Google's search business still dwarfs any value of MMI as a handset maker and Google's interests still lie in seeing Android adopted as widely and as profitably as possible, since its business model is still very much eyeballs not handsets. I'm sure the next Nexus will be really nice, but I'm sure Google will sell it unlocked only and for big bucks, in order to give some profits and love back to its MMI division while benchmarking but not threatening Android partners and not threatening Android parntners' market share or relationships with carriers. No Android partners are going to go running into the loving embrace of Mr. Balmer and the trustworthy people of Microsoft because Google just armed itself with a patent war chest. Quite the contrary. Now they know that Android is here to stay and that Microsoft's patent war will be rejoined by Google and MMI will stop their threats against the Android partners. MMI will become a boutique handset producer for Google, the permanent Android high end smartphone benchmark, profitable as all hell, but a threat to no Android partner, Google will make sure of that. I wouldn't be surprised if MMI never sells another carrier subsidized phone while still being enormously profitable. I bet this does help the Google TV project, though. The only losers in this deal are Apple and Microsoft. Nokia has bigger problems to worry about.
Finally, PERUS and symbainlover, since you two guys seem so serious and should be on vacation anyway, I am recommending a Hollywood movie to you two that I don't think you have seen even though it is ten years old. It could have been written by a Finn, it has that kind of dry, hopeless humor and heroism. It's called Office Space, and it speaks to the next fourteen months at Nokia, that is for sure.
http://movieclips.com/2pyJo-office-space-movie-motivation-problems/
http://movieclips.com/4aBM-office-space-movie-did-you-get-the-memo/
http://movieclips.com/rZXFU-office-space-movie-flair-minimum/
http://www.romston.com/2009/09/05/movieclip-office-space-fax-machine-moment/

[khim]

Gosh. I don't know what to say about Motorola but this nonsense about irreplaceability of NavTeq is just stupid.

Yes, it's true that Google does not own data and licenses it: it's written on the Google Maps quite clearly. You see something like "Map data (c) 2011 Europa Technologies, Geocentre Consulting, INEGI, MapLink, Tele Atlas" at the very bottom.

True. But try to zoom to the middle of US. Suddenly INEGI, LeadDog Consulting and ALL others evaporate and you clearly see "Map data (c) 2011 Google".

Think about this fact and about it's implications WRT Nokia and Navteq (don't forget that Google have not bought anyone to get this data).

[peter]

@Eurofan, looks you are copying my ideas about apply has to buy noika at 70% poremium for patent paortfolio and maps service.

"Apple will get the patents, will sell Navteq on principle of its being not a core competency"
no, Navteq purchase at $8B is actually excellent move by previous management. apple will definitely keep it forever, it maps service and position advertisement themselves are huge cash cow.

restraunts, attractions, parks, gas stations, cinemas, beaches, sex services, etc,etc, are all location based.

[peter]

@khim, it do matters. google lost the bid for both tele atlas and Navteq for its short-sight. it has to pay much more to own it. look at how many android phones sold, it pays or will have to pay huge money for maps data service from tomtom.

Navteq alone worths $10B alone. Location based service is becoming reality now than years ago.

[Eurofan]

@Peter, Yes I agree with you on everything but that Navtec is worth much. True its worth 1.5B euro and maybe for that reason Apple will keep it and spin it off to somewhere. Actually, no, Apple will sell it pronto. Even at only 1.5B euro it gets in the way and is a distraction. Apple isn't in the content business, its in the computing business. Plus I am mad at Navteq and especially Ollila for signing off on it because purchase of Navteq ruined Nokia, not Elop. Yes for many Symbian buyers in 2008,2009, and 2010 and 2011 Nokia Maps are a really nice thing and part of reason for buying a symbian phone. But fact symbian and not maemo is running nokia smartphones in 2009, 2010 and 2011 is to be blamed on that wasted 10B US $ throw away of resources that could have put a maemo slider in the hands of every rich american and european and chinese kid from 2009 onward! Apple wouldn't just be paying patent royalties to Nokia it would be flying its people over there to kiss some finnish ass just for practice before launching any big strategic plans. Year 2007/2008 was Nokia's big chance to make small tablet phones with Linux OS, for texting, for browsing, for porn watching, whatever. MoneyMoneyMoney. But Nokia/ollila threw that 10B US$ away on a mappiing app. JESUSFRENCHFRICHRIMINIE what an idot Ollila is, now proven twice, 1)Navteq, 2)Elop. Talk about a traitor, a spy, a weisel, etc.

I also disagree about cause of WTC towers collapse.

http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/military.htm

Nothing more can be said about that, unfortunately. Shaped charge, highly refined, low yield, neutron-type, US govt. military demolition device. q.e.d.

Anyway, to the point. You and me, Peter, are the only ones calling Apple buying Nokia. Yes they will do it for the reasons we have both put forward: patents and to piss of Microsoft. That's why I'm calling for Apple to run Nokia as a Linux maker subsidiary, and feature phone maker to the huddling masses. Because Steve Jobs' Apple is richer than god right now and Steve Jobs hates Microsoft and loves Linux. He got cut off in his NeXT project from reaching the heights of his idealism. Saving Nokia as a Linux maker will be his big pay off before he has to go talk to the big god. Getting Nokia's patents will cement his reputation as the greatest infotech barron ever to have lived.

Long live Steve Jobs, Nokia, Linux, Espoo, Finland and high taxes!

[rob]

besides the patents there is no reason for Apple to buy Nokia

except to block MSft's bid, who unlike Google are actually decent at making hardware and software ecosystem, like the xbox

Google, while way overpaying for Moto's patent portfolio, is further fracturing its OS, and scaring/pissing off a considerable # of clients

besides search, internet advertising, and data mining, every other one of Google's Beta projects are still half baked. Consider how god awfully ugly the UI for GMail is

I do see Google killing off most of Moto's smart phone division (which isnt any good anyway) and just making dumb feature phones Razr 2.0 to fill the void left by Nokia's impending implosion.

while it's a longshot, a Facebook acquisition of Nokia, would be a tremendous salvo against Google, but given Zuckerburg's lack of vision, and their inability to even get FBchat working correctly I seriously doubt them getting into the hardware biz

[khim]

@Peter: Google lost the bid for both tele atlas and Navteq for its short-sight. it has to pay much more to own it.

Short-sight? May be - time will tell.

@Peter: Look at how many android phones sold, it pays or will have to pay huge money for maps data service from tomtom.

Again: why?

Maps are just data and Google is data company. They don't NEED to pay for maps. They MAY decide to do so - if it'll be cheap enough. But the fact that they managed to collect enough US map data to offer turn-by-turn navigation there using this data EXCLUSIVELY says that they have the capability to gather more of it: or do you really believe US is somehow unique and Google can only ever manage to map US but will never be able to map anything else?

So that's it: if tom-tom will ask for too much (unlikely since their profits are evaporating) then Google will just go and create map of another country. And similarly for others...

NavTeq may have been worth 8 billion back in 2008, but it's worth for Google becomes less and less every day. Microsoft may want it... but it get's it for peanuts till Elop is fired so there are no rush either.

[peter]

@Eurofan, there is thrid reason, apple want to buy Nokia. apple is not just selling hardware/software/apps but also services, you should have seen the huge new data center the so called iCloud. it is all about online services shared among phones and PCs.

the thrid reason is keep huge symbian users under iCloud services. plus provide upgrading path from symbian smart phones to iPhones. Otherwise, these betrayed symbian users will move to android or wp mango.

In summay, here are the benefits for apple to buy nokia NOW instead of later:
1. deepest wireless patent portfolio;
2. built-in gps maps and location based service;
3. huge symbian users base to leverage;

After buying out nokia, apple will
1. fire Elop/Weber/Jorma immediately unconditionally;
2. spin off NSN to Huawei or ZTE;
3. keep nokia brand for feature phones and low/mid range smart phones under same iCloud service;
4. keep more bigger patent pressure against htc/samsung/LG/RIMM/SE, etc.
5. put meego talents into apple R&D team in Cupertino and integrate its innovations into iphone 6.

The modern mobile will be dominated by only two:
apple and google

MSFT/INTC/HPQ are all oasolete.

It is a pity to see nokia is going away in this way. Nokia could have been big one the three ecosystems but ruined by idiot Ollila and criminal Elop.

[peter]

@Victor Szulc, when you go on vacation abroad, you might be worrying about roaming data charge ?
you can do buy foreign sim card with prepay but it most of time won't have data plan with it.

how about traving around camping sites where there is no wireless signal ?

even in-car gps only solve partial of the problems. nokia deliver the true value to its users. but due to pretty poorly marketing, most users even do not know these benefits from a nokia phone.

[Eurofan]

@Peter: I stand corrected, there are now 2.5 reasons for the deal. My two plus your migration path to top end of all Linux phones -- the closed garden Apple phone. I agree, Apple could software engineer all that with its cloud, etc. S40,Symbian,Meego, iOS in that order of priciness. I love apple products. I just love Linux too. And iOS comes from Linux and Steve Jobs loves Linux. Anyway its all about the patents. The rest is gravy. So 3 so far minus 1/2 because I still don't think Apple wants to be content provider. It wants to be content seller and content channel owner. Like Amazon. The don't write books. They sell books. Different business. I see your point about location. Tomi has taught us all well and we get location before the rest of the world. But Apple doesn't want to be richer than ExxonMobil. Its embarassed by that shit. Apple wants to be #2 biggest US publicly held company. So it will take a slice of location but doesn't want to own the whole kit and caboodle. Put an business plan together, Peter, and Steve Jobs will sell you Navteq and location advertising for 1 shiny new euro and a lot of paperwork about minority investment and preferred convertable etc. Steve Jobs is like Movie director Stanley Kubrick. He wants to be in total control of his work and future and not be threatened by any schmuck with money. So he makes sure now his stuff is profitable. But he doesn't want to own the whole world like some idiot Microsoftian. Microsoft is on the way out in twenty years anyway so stop talking about them. Its Google, Apple, Linux, .... So its either 3 or 4 depending on what Steve Jobs does with Navteq, so I call it 2 1/2:
1)patent portfolio,2)Microsoft killer of vibrant Nokia Linux phone maker subsidiary,3)migration path s40,Meego, iOS supported by cloud and solftware engineering, 4) maps and location services. I call bullshit on (4) only because S.J. doesn't want to be too big only to have slice of the action. So (4) could be you, Peter, in a privately held spinoff, kind of a offshore Enron type of thing. Sounds exciting. PS Apple will pay 25B US$ for Nokia, but will wait 14 months until stock price of Nokia is 2.5 $/share under eFlop. Microsoft can kiss Apple's ass if it thinks it will outbid for Nokia. They don't have that kind of money and don't have the needs or desire for what Nokia has. Microsoft will buy some little korean company or a chinese maker if they can. Its all the same to them. They're always fighting the last war anyway and have no idea what we're talking about. XBox. Ha. Maybe is a break even at this point, ten years later. A pointless exercise, XBox. The only thing that ever made money for M$ was DOS, Windows,Office,and Enterprise. They're losing all those things drip drip to Linux. Ha Ha.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

To those who asked about me deleting comments

I do delete some comments on long-standing rules here on this blog and I do not think any of you here had been guilty of those.

I do not delete comments that are against my views - come on, how many people are here clearly calling me an idiot and I let those comments stand.

I remove comments on clear policies. I delete spam as I find it (may take some time for me to get to removing it, as some are on very old postings). If you post profanity, I delete you instantly and without mercy. If you waste the time of my readers - that you did not read my comment (even if it only includes one mention of something, where my reply would start 'as I wrote in the original blog posting') then they are mercilessly deleted instantly. And I delete those that are rude to my readers (or to me). By rude to me, I include anyone who misrepresents my words which are clearly on this blog. Those get deleted. But you may disagree with me to your heart's desire, as long as you are factual, refer to the blog I wrote and are not rude or crude in your language.

For those who are blackballed from this blog (there are of course some) they all have received warnings before they were removed, so for regular readers, dont worry, you are on safe ground if I have not warned you haha.. I enjoy the lively debate here and I am quite forgiving on the latitude of what goes. This is my personal blog to share with my fans, this is not a public forum or a press site, and we have no advertising here. I am here only out of my passion to share with you, my fans.

Separately - Typepad is at times weird, if your comment is long, it seems to post but is not posted. That is Typepad problem. Please try to post relatively short comments, that is why I try to do my responses in small batches, because even with me, it deletes comments that seem to take too long to post. That is a Typepad problem not me censoring you, haha.. I am sorry for when its happened, trust me, I know from painful experience of many a long well-considered response that I have written, that never appeared.

So keep the comments coming

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[peter]

@Eurofan,
"1)patent portfolio,2)Microsoft killer of vibrant Nokia Linux phone maker subsidiary,3)migration path s40,Meego, iOS supported by cloud and solftware engineering, 4) maps and location services"

Item 2) has to be removed:
Steve Jobs doesn't want Meego N9 to mitigate the momentum of iphone5. Or face firce competition from Meego ecosystem sponsored by intel.

left three are all my points but in different priorities.

IF nokia stock share price slips to under $4, Elop/Ollila will be fired and nokia stock price would rebound to $5 or above. So it is the time for apple to buy right now.

I'd like to see nokia as one ecosystem by itself alone if Elop could be fired by September 18th,2011.