Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services business will be finalized as of this Friday, April 25.
Microsoft will pay $5 billion for Nokia’s devices and service unit and $2.2 billion for its patent and mapping services.
Microsoft acknowledged the transaction-completion date in a blog post on April 21.
As of Friday, Nokia’s handset and services business is part of Microsoft. Microsoft announced its intentions to purchase this part of Nokia for $7.2 billion back in September 2013.
There have been a few tweaks to the deal between the time of announcement and the close preparation process, according to today’s blog post. Specifically, Microsoft will manage the Nokia.com domain and social-media sites for “up to a year.” In addition, Microsoft is not going to purchase Nokia’s Korean manufacturing facility, which was originally slated to be part of the deal.
“The original deal had all employees in Nokia’s Chief Technology Office continuing with Nokia. We’ve adjusted the agreement so the 21 employees in China working on mobile phones will join Microsoft and continue their work,” added today’s post.
Over the weekend, there were a couple of sites claiming that Microsoft plans to refer to the newly acquired Nokia assets as “Microsoft Mobile.” Microsoft has not confirmed that this is the plan. When I asked today about the alleged renaming, a Microsoft spokesperson said the company had nothing more to share at this time.
Last September, Microsoft said it would acquire around 32,000 Nokia employees, including more than 18,000 employees involved in the manufacturing of devices, as part of the transaction. Nokia also assigned transfer of some of its patents to Microsoft as part of the deal. Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is now heading Microsoft’s Devices unit, reporting to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
By Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft