Satya Nadella explained in his new book which is named Hit Refresh that he voted against the Nokia acquisition. The operation cost $ 7.6 billion and ended up selling part of what remained of that division to Foxconn.

Satya Nadella Voted Against Nokia Acquisition In 2013

To recall, the tech giant Microsoft bought the mobile division of Nokia way back in 2013, but the current CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, explained in his new book which is named Hit Refresh that he voted against the Nokia acquisition.

The operation cost $ 7.6 billion. Microsoft was unable to rebuild the smartphone and smartphone maker’s business as expected and ended up selling part of what remained of that division to Foxconn.

In his new book “Hit Refresh” he recalls the situation that dates back to early 2013 when Satya Nadella’s predecessor Steve Ballmer made an internal poll with other company directors about the possibility of buying Nokia.

Satya Nadella, who was then heading Microsoft’s cloud business, had voted against the acquisition in the internal poll. Well, Steve Ballmer presumed that the Nokia deal would give a support to Microsoft’s struggling phone division.

Satya Nadella in his book Hit Refresh wrote “I did not get why the world needed the third ecosystem in phones, unless we changed the rules… But it was too late to regain the ground we had lost. We were chasing our competitors’ taillights”

Satya Nadella even commented that Microsoft had achieved some success for the lesser time. The Lumia brand has achieved some significant market share in the very short period after the launch. However, that didn’t last for a long time.

Not only Satya Nadella, even Bill Gates was against the deal. Microsoft had made several attempts to reconstruct the Finnish mobile manufacturer, but the changing times failed to bear the fruits.

Satya Nadella wrote “The Nokia deal [was a] painful example of this loss [in mobile]. We were desperate to catch up after missing the rise of mobile technology… Nokia fell from the market-share leader in mobile to number three”

“In retrospect, what I regret most is the impact these layoffs had on very talented, passionate people in our phone division”

However, in the year 2016, Microsoft sold off its mobile assets for $350 million to HMD Global. Now HMD Global is manufacturing Nokia branded smartphone that is powered by Android.

So, what do you think about this? Share your views in the comment box below.

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