Microsoft-Nokia Love Fest Gets Mixed Reviews
Who's the hottest celebrity couple this Valentine's Day? We have no idea, actually, given that most of our knowledge of popular culture comes to a screeching halt around the year 1992 or so. But one couple that's getting a lot of celebrity-style press is Microsoft and Nokia.
Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop -- the former Microsoft executive who recently left to run Nokia -- consummated their deal with one of the dorkiest handshakes ever late last week, and Elop is talking about Windows Phone 7 being worth billions of dollars to his company.
We here at RCPU are modestly bullish on the hook-up ourselves, and validating our take a bit (not that we need validation...ahem) is at least one pundit who thinks that the deal will work out well -- for Microsoft, anyway.
So, everything's fine, right? Microsoft and Nokia, with their various synergies and what not, are preparing to carve out a respectable niche in the smartphone market. Well, maybe...or maybe not. There's one constituency that's not chuffed about this deal, and it's a pretty important (and often self-predicting one): Wall Street.
Investors have been, at the time of this writing, pounding Nokia stock and basically sending the message that the Microsoft-Nokia love story will end in tears. We wonder to what extent is this a self-fulfilling prophecy; Windows Phone 7 is still fairly new, and Elop just took over at Nokia. Could everybody have a few months, maybe, before Wall Street types brand this love-in a complete disaster? After all, folks in lower Manhattan have been wrong about stuff before…
We'll visit this topic later in the week with some reader comments. If you want to chime in, send your thoughts to lpender@rcpmag.com.
Posted by Lee Pender on February 14, 2011