Why Microsoft's Nokia Deal Is Too Little, Too Late

Nerval's Lobster writes: When Microsoft announced last week that it would acquire Nokia for $7.2 billion, it wasn’t exactly a surprise: the two companies had developed such a symbiotic relationship that an all-out merger seemed like the next (and perhaps only) logical step. As the analysts have pointed out, the deal radically expands Microsoft’s headcount (and complicates its corporate hierarchy) at a time when the company is doing its best to compete against Google, Apple, and other tech behemoths—imagine growing a third arm and trying to figure out how to use it while boxing against a crowd of experienced fighters, and you have some idea of the pain that the company faces over the next several quarters. But that's not even the deal's biggest problem: in addition to potentially alienating every other Windows Phone manufacturer by bringing Nokia in-house, the deal does nothing to solve the issue of Windows Phone's piddling market-share — and now Microsoft needs to run a complicated hardware business on top of all its other issues.