Microsoft's Nokia acquisition

Microsoft buys Nokia for $7.2 billion Microsoft has decided to buy Nokia’s mobile division for $7.2 billion. This announcement, though not entirely surprising, has created waves in the mobile arena. Here’s what you need to know about this landmark deal. Microsoft and Nokia's India operations are among the biggest outside their home countries, and it looks like a certain number of redundancies and consequent layoffs are inevitable.

Nokia and Microsoft have always dreamed big – we dreamed of putting a computer on every desk, and a mobile phone in every pocket, and we’ve come a long way toward realizing those dreams.It remains to be seen whether Nokia becomes a nightmare, but at least Microsoft didn't break the bank. Most analysts say Microsoft paid fair value for Nokia, which gets to focus on its network business and lands cash.

Such integration in most cases implies redundancies. Nokia has 9,000 employees in India, almost a tenth of its global workforce. Microsoft has 6,000 employees here, out of its global strength of 97,000. It's unlikely that there will be much overlap at the engineering, support and R&D levels, because Nokia is a devices company, and Microsoft largely a software company.