Its has been a tough couple of years for Research In Motion and Nokia. Both companies have been struggling in the face of competition from Apple and Android powered devices.
A handful of years ago Nokia were one of the world's biggest phone makers. Since then they have lost 90% of their market value. In the last five years Apple have been riding high with growing sales of their iPhone. In an attempt to restructure and streamline the floundering business model they announced that they were firing another 10,000 employees.
The Nokia operating system is long dead, and they have placed their future success in a partnership with Microsoft driving the operating software.
Sadly, the latest reports show that Microsoft phones are not selling well. We have covered this many times in the last year, but what is concerning is that Nokia are ‘betting the farm‘ on Windows Phone. If Microsoft can't get market share we could well see Nokia fading into the annals of history.
Yahoo Finance add “Because Microsoft (MSFT) and Nokia are now in bed together, moreover, Nokia's problems have become Microsoft's problems. Microsoft is desperate to regain some of the ground it has lost to Apple and Google in smartphones. But its one major global partner, Nokia, is now drowning. So that puts Microsoft back at square one again.”
Microsoft announced last week that they are making their own integrated tablet, to go head to head against partners who will also be using the Microsoft operating system. Many analysts suggest that they don't want to rely on Nokia to produce a winning tablet for them.
Kitguru says: Are Nokia doomed?