back to article Lenovo: 'Us, buy Nokia? Surely you jest'

Lenovo's EMEA chief Gianfranco Lanci has laughed off suggestions that the Chinese computer giant would buy out flailing phone-maker Nokia, dismissing the idea as a "joke". When asked about rumours that Lenovo was considering swooping on the troubled phone-makers, whose value has plunged in the past two years, Lanci told …

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  1. Simbu
    Thumb Up

    I suspect the market is taking a 'wait and see' approach to Nokia, to see if Windows Phone 8 is the success the company needs it to be. Their Q3 is likely to suck a bit after the "no WP8 for WP7 devices" news.

    By the information available so far, it looks to be a very good consumer OS, and has an excellent chance of mopping up all those business customers who are giving up on RIM. WP8 really is going to be the next best thing for enterprise, with excellent Office / Outlook integration, hardware encryption, secure booting and sideloading via Company Hub.

    I await the haters who are desperate for WP8 to fail, but can't really give a good reason why. The reasons to not like it are disappearing fast.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "The reasons to not like it are disappearing fast."

      It's made by Microsoft.

      I don't see that reason fading any time soon.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "The reasons to not like it are disappearing fast."

        It's very easy to forget that it is by Microsoft when you use it. There's obviously a few clues in the shape of an IE icon.

        But it really is a great mobile OS. While iOS and Android rip each other off Microsoft has something more original for a change. I think Metro seems a bit daft for a desktop OS but it works on a phone.

        You don't really need to launch apps that often to check what is going on with your friends. With iOS I was always flicking between them and once my home button started to fail it became a bit annoying to double click.

        Being able to pin various parts of an App to the home screen is very handy. Open the weather app, find your town then pin it to the main screen so you can jump to your town's weather or just watch the tile for details.

        Rather than have application icons that launch and then another page of widgets that show you things, Metro combines the two which is much more useful.

        1. Bob Vistakin
          Pint

          "Being able to pin various parts of an App to the home screen is very handy."

          Android users in 2007 thought so, too.

        2. c 1
          Thumb Down

          Re: "The reasons to not like it are disappearing fast."

          @ AC:

          "But it really is a great mobile OS."

          No - it is not. It is terrible to use (and I have used a heap of different WP devices across all versions). The UI is ugly as sin. Every time I have to use a WP device I dislike it more. And this seems to tally with most customer experiences given the sales to date.

        3. c 1
          Thumb Down

          Re: "The reasons to not like it are disappearing fast."

          "Being able to pin various parts of an App to the home screen is very handy."

          As BobV alluded to (but not quite 2007) you do realise Android has had this capability since Cupcake (7 versions ago) was released in early 2009. How MS are marketing "Live Tiles" as a unique is beyond me - they are just rectangular widgets.

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          You don't really need to launch apps that often to check what is going on with your friends

          That's why Android has widgets.....

          Anything worthwhile that Windows Phone is brining to the tablet for corporates, it's already in there in Android. full device encryption, remote wipe, virtualisation etc etc...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "excellent chance of mopping up all those business customers"

      Too bad for Microsoft that most enterprises are getting on board the BYOD bandwagon, and given the chojce between iOS, Android and WP most punters will give WP the swerve.

    3. Bob Vistakin
      FAIL

      "can't really give a good reason why"

      It's made by bastards who extort $5 per handset from the good guys. That about to change too?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "can't really give a good reason why"

        The good guys? I dont see any good guys in this business and the privacy thieves aren't even near the top of the virtue list...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "can't really give a good reason why"

        Google are taking the place of Microsoft. It won't be long before they are suing everyone on the planet.

      3. foo_bar_baz
        Big Brother

        Re: "can't really give a good reason why"

        If I enable GPS on my Android handset it asks if I want to allow it to send anonymized location information to Larry and Sergey, at my frikking expense. I decline, and GPS goes off again. No, they cannot have my information, even if it's "anonymized". No, I will not pay for them to get it. I'm so looking forward to getting rid of my CIAndroid snoop phone. Until then it's no GPS.

        /tinfoil hat off

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "can't really give a good reason why"

          Re: moron who can't work GPS on an Android phone.

          Had you have spent less than 30 seconds in the settings menu you'd find all the options to turn off the nag screen and stop location reporting permanently.

          You're inability to use simple technology won't change with a new brand of phone.

          1. Dave 126

            Re: "can't really give a good reason why"

            @AC 10:57

            I can't find that option of which you speak in the settings menu. Telling it not to report location turns off the GPS. Can you give us a bit more of a clue, because evidently I'm a moron too.

            Ta!

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

            2. M Gale

              Re: "can't really give a good reason why"

              @Dave 126:

              I had the same problem as well. However, for the first time since I updated the device, I went poking around in the location services section of ICS. They now have three checkboxes: "Google's Location Service" to use the wifi location. "GPS Satellites" to use GPS, and "Location & Google Search" to let Google use your location.

              You can tick the first two boxes and leave the third unchecked if you like. Wonder what else GPS is used for on WP8 and IOS when it's enabled? Ever noticed how Microsoft and Apple only appear to be concerned about privacy when there's a bit of a Google scandal going on? It's probably because they're all in it up to their necks and are just glad it's Google that gets caught so they can look good, while continuing with as much data mining as they can get away with.

              Anyway, whoever said "CIAndroid" doesn't have a clue about mobile phones. I suggest you never buy another mobile phone and destroy the one you have, because pretty much anything connected to a mobile network these days is also a tracking device.

  2. Big_Ted
    FAIL

    Why on earth would Lenovo who are growing market share fast in the PC area bother with a phone maker that is loosing money fast ?

    They would do better buying shares in Facebook and likeing themselves a billion times.........

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Simple, buy cheap. Turn around business, wait for share price to increase. Sell for profit.

      Have you never heard of venture capitalists before now?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Wrong

        Buy cheap, asset strip, leave it to die on it's ass. Profit.

        Have you never heard of venture capitalists before now?

    2. Neil Greatorex
      Headmaster

      Please, please

      Consider "lose" & "loose".

      Discuss..

      1. Richard 12 Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: Please, please

        Presumably Nokia have entered the Olympic archery contest and forgotten their arrows, so are shooting wads of cash at the targets.

        You know, that actually makes about as much sense as their current market strategy...

  3. paul-s
    Facepalm

    Anti-Competitive Smokescreen

    It's most likely a smokescreen put out surreptitiously by the Elop Trojan, to make it look like there are other suitors before Microsoft swoops in for the premeditated kill. Helps keep anti-competitive investigations off their backs.

  4. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    ".........sent Nokia shares on an unusual high....."

    Therein lies the clue. Whenever a company is in trouble the market sharks try one of two strategies. Attacking a company's share price by various "shorting" tactics or pumping the share price by means of some form of market manipulation. One means to achieve the latter is to spread false rumours in an attempt to create an artificial increase in share value. This approach has been used three times in the last twelve months with Nokia stock. First it was MS themselves who were the alleged suitors, then it was Samsung and now Lenovo. The stripy shirted sharks appear to lack imagination.

    1. wowfood

      Re: ".........sent Nokia shares on an unusual high....."

      I'm kind of surprised that Samsung / Google aren't trying to buy it.

      The number of Nokia patents alone could be worth the value for them.

      1. Arctic fox

        Re: ".........sent Nokia shares on an unusual high....."

        I am not surprised. You can see the effect that the rumours that Lenovo was a buyer had (at least in part) on the share price. The moment any such negotiations started so would the rumours, rapidly leading to a share price that would cause even Google and Samsung to think twice before making a binding offer.

  5. sueme2
    Devil

    naa

    Bloomberg reports : The Elopians have bought $1M Nokia shares. Nokia has just gone up by the biggest % in 20 years !!! Meanwhile, about 80% of the shares than can be, are shorted. So look no more. Follow the cash.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-01/nokia-shares-post-biggest-7-day-gain-since-1991.html

    Reuters reports a Nokia -- Goupon deal. Do we hear the sounds of pumping? Naa, they would never do a pump and dump on Nokia.

    1. Arctic fox
      Happy

      Re: "naa" Those who are holding those short positions better hope that they have.........

      ...........guessed correctly otherwise the apparent scale of those postions suggests that someone is going the take the mother of all baths. The rise in the share price has been very sharp indeed, unless that is followed by a fall that is on near the same scale some of the stripy shirt brigade are going to be in some difficulty when time comes to settle up. Not that that will cause me to shed any tears. -:P

  6. gorra

    Samsung win phone 8?

    Samsung will be preparing a win8 phone release. Probably several models. Nokia doesn't have any special advantage in selling phones; I think it will get clobbered and lose market share on the only platform it still supports.

    1. Arctic fox

      Re: "Samsung will be preparing a win8 phone release"

      Certainly they will. However, considering the great success they are having with the Galaxy S series (behind which a huge head of steam appears to be developing very nicely indeed from the company's point of view) it is a moot point whether or not Samsung will put the same effort behind their WinPhone 8 devices. Even a company the size of Sammy has to prioritise.

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