Microsoft Selling Feature Phone Business

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Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced it reached an agreement to sell the company’s entry-level feature phone assets to FIH Mobile Ltd., a subsidiary of Hon Hai/Foxconn Technology Group, and HMD Global, Oy for $350 million. As part of the deal, FIH Mobile Ltd. will also acquire Microsoft Mobile Vietnam — the company’s Hanoi, Vietnam, manufacturing facility. Upon close of this deal, approximately 4,500 employees will transfer to, or have the opportunity to join, FIH Mobile Ltd. or HMD Global, Oy, subject to compliance with local law.

Microsoft will continue to develop Windows 10 Mobile and support Lumia phones such as the Lumia 650, Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL, and phones from OEM partners like Acer, Alcatel, HP, Trinity and VAIO. As part of the deal, Microsoft will transfer substantially all of its feature phone assets, including brands, software and services, care network and other assets, customer contracts, and critical supply agreements, subject to compliance with local law. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2016, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.
 
Interesting but no, this is not the Windows Phone is dead thread you are looking for. :D Honestly, if there was nothing of value in that particular division over there, I cannot imagine this having been purchased at all. In the mean time, I will continue to enjoy my HTC One M8 for Windows with build 10586.318 on it. (Yes, I would love a newer phone but, I am on Verizon so a 950 or XL is not available to me. Also, I have an ETF that I am not willing to eat.)

I did try Android recently and although I thought it was good, I never really used more than 5 of the apps I downloaded anyways. (The kicker is, they were all Microsoft apps.) When my contract is up next February, we will see then.
 
I have the same phone ManofGod, and I love Windows 10 with the exception of the lack of software. Its so much cleaner and more coherent than Android without heavy customization, in my opinion. I really hope they continue with the windows 10 mobile development, and I hope it eventually picks up some more steam. I have been a member of the windows insider program since they offered it, and I have no intention of jumping ship unless they just stop development altogether.
 
ZenDragon said:
I have the same phone ManofGod, and I love Windows 10 with the exception of the lack of software.
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This and that's the result of low market share which is only getting worse unfortunately. Windows 10 mobile is actually solid but there's really no way to improve the experience without the apps and there's really no fix for that without numbers.
 
So I may still transition off my Lumia Icon to something more Win10 Phoneish? Yes!
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
Hold on, what are they selling exactly? The entire Lumia lineup? or something else?
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It looks like they are selling the Hanoi, Vietnam, manufacturing facility and what appears to be the whole catalogue of what they manufacture there. Which from what I gather is their cheap entry level phones (somebody correct me if I am wrong because I am also having a really hard time actually figuring out what they did sell).
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
Hold on, what are they selling exactly? The entire Lumia lineup? or something else?
Click to expand...

What Lakados said, and the Nokia name, back to Nokia so they can allow the 3rd party to use it for their phones. There is speculation that the Lumia line is dead since they specifically said they will support existing phones and nothing about developing them.
 
It's not a bad platform. However, as someone in the mobile app development business, there just isn't much of a market for developers yet. Visual Studio is a nice IDE, C# is a great language - just need to get more customers I suppose.
Haven't tried the cross platform tools they recently bought (Xamarin I believe) yet. If we could have a single source base and get a few platforms without a lot of extra code, that would be ok. However, cross platform tools have not produced the best apps based on my experience. Guess it depends on what you are after in an app.
 
Lakados said:
It looks like they are selling the Hanoi, Vietnam, manufacturing facility and what appears to be the whole catalogue of what they manufacture there. Which from what I gather is their cheap entry level phones (somebody correct me if I am wrong because I am also having a really hard time actually figuring out what they did sell).
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Their flagship models including the 950 and 950 XL are made there as well


rant on

Dear Microsoft,

As a loyal Windows Mobile user you made me extremely upset when you canned WM 6.X for this POS known as WP7. That thing was a giant turd an it was not until Windows Phone 8.1 that you started to pull your head out of your bottom end but it was really too late...

Nokia had did you a BIG favor and literally saved your bacon by making cheap Windows Phone 8.x devices and what did you do? Alienate your other manufacturers by buying them out. How'd that work out for you? It didn't

Now you are about to abandon Windows Mobile 10.... Nice....

Great way to take care of your user base (what's left of it)
 
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The press release specifically said they weren't abandoning mobile. And the way Nokia was going, they were getting ready to abandon WM before the buyout happened. It was just a matter of waiting too long to react to a changing world.
 
Press release and reality are two entirely different things. They said the same thing about WM 6.X and it was soon abandoned.
 
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