Nokia emerges smothered in red ink, manages to flog cheapo Windows Phones Nokia bagged record sales of Windows Phones sales in the third quarter of 2013, thanks largely to its low-end models: 8.8m Lumia handsets were shifted, up from 7.7m in Q2. The mobile-phone division, for which Nokia has accepted a bid of €5.44bn in cash from Microsoft (pending approval at a shareholders' meeting), recorded …
Perhaps one should also point out that Microsoft did not by Nokia, they bought the cell phone division.
And from TheInquirer:
"Beyond sales figures, Nokia reported a profit of €118m on €5.66bn revenue, compared to the €564m loss the firm posted in the third quarter last year. Nokia's Devices and Services division, which Microsoft picked up earlier this year, posted a $118m loss, as expected."
"That quarterly payment is ~equal to the WP license fees Nokia pays Microsoft"
Our agreement with Microsoft includes platform support payments from Microsoft to us as well as software royalty payments from us to Microsoft. Under the terms of the agreement governing the platform support payments, the amount of each quarterly platform support payment is USD 250 million. We have a competitive software royalty structure, which includes annual minimum software royalty commitments that vary over the life of the agreement. Software royalty payments, with minimum commitments are paid quarterly. Over the life of the agreement, both the platform support payments and the minimum software royalty commitments are expected to measure in the billions of US dollars. Over the life of the agreement the total amount of the platform support payments is expected to slightly exceed the total amount of the minimum software royalty commitment payments. As of the end of 2012, the amount of platform support payments received by Nokia has exceeded the amount of minimum software royalty commitment payments made to Microsoft, thus the net cash flows have been in our favour.
As a result, the remaining minimum software royalty commitment payments are expected to exceed the remaining platform support payments by a total of approximately EUR 0.5 billion over the remaining life of the agreement.
i.e. Nokia now pays Microsoft...
I generally like the Windows UI, but wish they would add proper notifications in addition to their live tiles. Their recent releases get them caught up on the technology front- support larger screens, multiple cores, etc.
But they continue to drag in Apps. The have some of the big names, but then they fall down quickly. Even now, they still don't have a proper youtube app and they label browser pages as apps. Yes, you can use your browser, but the point of the app is that it makes the major functions much easier to use rather than zooming in and out on a browser.
You'd think with all the money they have and all they've spent, they could spend just a bit more to bribe major developers to write proper apps.
Users of feature phones typically won't use many (or even any) apps, beyond some of what is built in.
So therefore they have no tie (other than experience of how operate the thing) to any platform.
So lack of Apps and lack of compatibility between versions of WP and lack of certainty of support, which would be show stoppers to most smartphone users, are not an issue.
If the price is right, then the only real thing is battery life.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
