Nokia Selling Its Headquarters To Raise Funds 186
PolygamousRanchKid writes with news the Nokia is looking to generate some cash by selling its headquarters and leasing it back from the new owner. The sale price for the 48,000 sq. meter building is €170 million.
"The struggling mobile phone company has operated in the glass and steel building in Espoo near Helsinki, known as Nokia House, since 1997. The sale is another step towards reducing costs and concentrating on its core business. Nokia has spent almost a third of its cash reserves in 12 months, and in October had about €3.6bn left in the bank to turn itself into a smartphone manufacturer capable of competing with Apple and Samsung."
of course they are. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why of course they are selling the headquarters. Why would Microsoft need it when they already have a headquarters? All they just want the patents software(nokia maps) talent and factories. They already have all the bureaucracy and buildings they need.
Re:A really sad demise (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe I'm not the average customer but the Symbian kernel is differentiating to me. Symbian phones are fast as hell and have battery life that Linux and BSD powered smartphones can only dream of.
Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is SLASHDOT. We are BIAS.
You mean the company that single handedly set the web back at least five years and has been criminally convicted for anti competitive behavior and the company that is being run into the ground by the 8th largest shareholder of the previously mentioned company?
Gee, I wonder why anyone would hate them.
Nothing to do with perhaps a Memo (Score:5, Insightful)
This is SLASHDOT. We are BIAS.
Its not bias of slashdot!? that has made Microsoft Windows Phone and that Nokia Strategy as popular Marmite covered spiders. Nokia twinning themselves *exclusively* with an OS that late; with less features and incompatible with its predecessors, with no viable upgrade path, with proprietary software...on hardware made in china; with less features than its predecessors or the competition at the cost to real peoples jobs, its market value, revenues; market share; brand value....only for it being replace with the latest suitor HTC [with the pattern repeated as Microsoft become their own OEM]. Has become a patent troll with Microsoft...while devaluing those patents to anyone who would have bought them.
I'm just barely touching the surface of what is perhaps a decline of company on an unrepresented scale. I find it insulting to an nth degree that anyone would try to pass anything, anyone saying anything against this is, as emotional, although I suspect the thousands of newly unemployed probably aren't loving them right now.
Re:Google sells Android for less than free ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seen how much money Microsoft is making out of Android?
More than they make from Windows Phone.
Re:of course they are. (Score:5, Insightful)
Side note, does Microsoft actually need Nokia's factories or talent? Once Microsoft owns the IP, can't they simply close everything down and move the business to the US, and the manufacturing to China? If Microsoft is only concerned with (essentially) one product (the Windows 8 phone), why would they need Nokia's talent at all?
Side side note, I wonder if this will have an appreciable effect on the economy of Finland? (Probably not, but I don't have the numbers in front of me.)
Why hire M$ moles in the first place ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I do not own any Nokia shares - and I thank the man upstairs for granting me the wisdom for keeping myself away from Nokia as far as I can.
Back to the main stuff ---
I still do not understand the rationale of Nokia's BoD hiring a M$ mole to run Nokia.
What's so special of that M$ mole in the first place?
I mean, look at Nokia now, versus the Nokia before that M$ mole took over.
Nokia was in a decline - yes, a decline, before the M$ mole was hired.
After that mole took over, Nokia took a nose dive.
No longer a decline, but a nosedive.
For how many quarters already Nokia has posted a loss?
Because of that M$ mole, Nokia has run out of cash - and now, even its HQ building has to be sold to raise some.
Man ...
As I have said - I just do.not.understand !!
Re:The Microsoft and the Nokia (Score:3, Insightful)
A Microsoft asked a Nokia to carry him across a river. The Nokia
refused because it was afraid of getting stung by the Microsoft.
But the clever Microsoft argued that if it stings the Nokia then
they would both drown. So the Nokia agrees and carries the
Microsoft into the river. Halfway across the Microsoft stings
the Nokia dooming them both. In its dying breath the Nokia asks
the Microsoft why it did such a thing.
The Microsoft looks to HTC and Samsung as the Nokia sank. Grinning, it reaches for Nokia's patents as it goes under, whispering, "You see, Nokia, I can swim."
No hate here, just sorrow (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is painful to see such a fantastic nerd friendly company hit bottom like this. I really would like them become a phoenix and raise from their ashes, but I'm not seeing it in the cards. But you know, if they would only ship an updated version of their famed N900 I'd certainly be willing to send another $600 their way, and I'd be willing to wager so would a few other million people as well. Hope those 170 million Euros will keep Nokia alive long enough to come to its senses.
Re:Queue the slashdot Nokia/MSFT hating. (Score:2, Insightful)
People used IE in the early 2000s because it came with the computer.
I'm an IT guy, I used IE because it was better than anything else available at the time. Most other "people" clearly thought the same thing.
most people thought Microsoft was the only source for computer software. Under threat of never seeing your precious Word and Excel documents again, they were right.
Crap. People used MS because it was the one of the only producers of user friendly software that wasn't a pile of steaming dog turd. Firefox, Apple and Google showed that if you produce quality products, people will use them.
Innovation was dead as long as nobody dared try to use anything else.
Jesus fucking Christ, if innovation died then where the fuck did Apple and Google and Facebook come from? The biggest IT companies around all came to power during your so called period of innovation-death. Good luck with that hypothesis...
Re:Why O Why o Why ELOP??? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing they can do now is make Android phones, in a marketplace dominated by Samsung.
Their Linux OS efforts are now so far behind, and with the sale of Qt, not likely to pick up speed, that they can't take the risk of trying to introduce another "burning platform" to the mix. Apple are not going to license them iOS, and Windows Phone is obviously a no-go (does the N9 *still* outsell all their Lumia lines?)
The board are likely not able to mentally process the idea that the only way forward for Nokia is as a minority player in the smartphone market. They've been so used to dominating the mobile phone market, that anything that isn't domination just doesn't sound good enough. Windows Phone is their only hope for domination, because it's the only thing that can significantly differentiate them from all the Android phones out there.
Honestly, they should go for Android ASAP. Nokia still has brand recognition - they are still the iconic phone brand that people think of, still the most recognisable default ringtone in the world, still have a reputation for quality. They should leverage their ability to build decent hardware, slap Android on it, get out there in the market (Android is the *largest* high end mobile market), and fight for their survival.
Alas, they've become lazy. They don't want to fight - they didn't have to for so long. Instead, they are King of the Windows Phone market. Whoopee-do.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)