Although the Microsoft / Nokia agreement announced early last month caused shockwaves in the industry, many analysts have rightly been cautious about the acquisition of Nokia’s hardware division. That’s because the deal has not been finalized nor approved, by anyone, and the process is not expected to be completed until early 2014.
The question on many minds though, including our own, is what are things like now between the two companies? One stream of thought is that Microsoft and Nokia are going forward, working on devices, and that they have begun to merge divisions, knocking down those barriers that Belfiore referred to in an interview with CNET. Better phones, more exciting software, right?
However, Hal Berenson, a retired Distinguished Engineer and General Manager at Microsoft, says it is just the opposite. In an insightful blog post he notes that Microsoft is having little to no influence on anything Nokia is doing right now—in fact, it probably has less power than before the deal was announced.