There’s No Way Nokia Could Sell Its Phone Division to Microsoft

Eldar Murtazin, who has long been a reliable source for information on what’s going on inside smartphone makers, posted something startling on his blog today:

Next week Nokia will start the negotiations about the sale of it’s phone unit to Microsoft.

I can see only one possible response to this: There ain’t no freakin’ way. All that Nokia does is make phones. This would be like Ford selling its car and truck manufacturing units to BP — there’d be nothing left of the company.

Nokia used to do much more, but it has outsourced or dumped just about everything but its division that designs and makes phones. If it sold this off, it would be a company in name only, as it wouldn’t have anything left to do.

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Murtazin has a good track record when it comes to having the inside scoop. He was, for example, the first to reveal that Nokia was dumping the Symbian OS in favor of Microsoft Windows Phone as the operating system for its future smartphones. But in this case, I think he’s off base.

Nokia responded to the blog post by saying via Twitter:

We normally don’t comment on rumours as you know, but we have to say that Eldar’s rumours are obviously getting less accurate with every passing moment.

Despite Murtazin reputation for accuracy, in this case I think he’s incorrect. Or if he is on target, the people running Nokia need to have their heads examined. The switch to Windows Phone was bold and a bit controversial, but it has a decent chance of being a long-term success for Nokia. But selling its phone division to Microsoft? That would be the end of Nokia.

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