IDC comments on Nokia devices acquisition by Microsoft

IDC has made its comments on the recently announced Microsoft and Nokia deal. This announcement comes two-and-a-half years since these companies announced a strategic partnership in an attempt to regain the market share lost to the competition.

According to IDC, this announcement reaffirms Microsoft’s strategy to be known as a devices and services company. Nokia will provide Microsoft an enhanced access to emerging markets with an access to widespread channel partner and hardware manufacturing ecosystem. Further, this may open up possibilities for Microsoft to lower its mobile OS licensing costs, thereby bringing down the total cost of owning a mobile device. 

As a part of this deal, Microsoft also gains access to Nokia’s (barring NSN) design patents and related Intellectual Property (IP), which can be leveraged to drive focussed innovation around the Asha and Lumia platforms.

On the other side, there arises a doubt around this acquisition on the potential alienation of other OEMs that were looking to launch devices on a Windows platform. However, the official communication from Microsoft suggests that they will continue to license Windows phones to other manufacturing partners as well. Moving forward, it will be interesting to watch how they (Microsoft) will defend their ecosystem in the price competitive markets like India.
In conclusion, the acquisition has the potential to be highly beneficial to Microsoft as it would help build a stronger and wider mobile (tablet and mobile phone) presence.  But a greater benefit might be to the broader market (especially India) where the adoption of smartphones might be accelerated and a more robust mobile app ecosystem would be formed.