It’s official, Nokia has got a new daddy… I mean owner

It is official, straight out of Redmond. Nokia Devices and Services business now has a new owner. Microsoft’s protracted acquisition of Nokia has been finalised.

“Today we welcome the Nokia Devices and Services business to our family. The mobile capabilities and assets they bring will advance our transformation,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “Together with our partners, we remain focused on delivering innovation more rapidly in our mobile-first, cloud-first world.”

Nokia has essentially been adsorbed into MSFT’s devices group, at this stage it is not 100% certain what mobile devices from MSFT will be called but there is no more Nokia (a moment of silence please).

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(Moment over)

Good news for Bill Gates and his company though. Finally, a consumer play that could cut it in the running in the Apple/Samsung mobile war.

Microsoft will be doing some house rearranging as former Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop, who will serve as executive vice president of the Microsoft Devices Group, will be reporting directly to Nadella.

His new job will have him oversee the company’s expanded devices business that includes Lumia smartphones and tablets, Nokia mobile phones, Xbox hardware, Surface, Perceptive Pixel (PPI) products and accessories.

The Redmond-based company seems to be quite happy about the acquisition and the new personnel that comes with it.

Microsoft welcomes personnel with deep industry experience in more than 130 sites across 50 countries worldwide, including several factories that design, develop, manufacture, market and sell a broad portfolio of innovative smart devices, mobile phones and services. As part of the transaction, Microsoft will honor all existing Nokia customer warranties for existing devices.

This device move will no doubt help MSFT push more Windows Phones out into the market, which says is “the fastest-growing ecosystem in the smartphone market”.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, according to IDC, Windows Phone reinforced its position as a top three smartphone operating system and was the fastest-growing platform among the leading operating systems with 91 percent year-over-year gain.1 Furthermore, with the Nokia mobile phone business, Microsoft will target the affordable mobile devices market, a $50 billion annual opportunity,2 delivering the first mobile experience to the next billion people while introducing Microsoft services to new customers around the world.