Satya Nadella Launches His Book “Hit Refresh” — Says That He Didn’t Want Microsoft To Buy Nokia
They did some experiments, like replacing the Nokia devices we knew with Microsoft Lumia devices. But it seems all of that wasn’t enough to put Redmond in the smartphone business as the devices couldn’t prove their superiority against the Android and iOS armies.
The decision to acquire Nokia was during final years of Steve Ballmer working as the CEO. Now, according to a new book called “Hit Refresh” by Satya Nadella, it’s not very surprising to know that he didn’t want Microsoft to buy Nokia.
“I voted no. I did not get why the world needed the third ecosystem in phones, unless we changed the rules … But it was too late to regain the ground we had lost. We were chasing our competitors’ taillights.” Nadella wrote in Hit Refresh, spotted by Thurrot.
It wasn’t just Nadella, even Bill Gates wasn’t in the favor of the acquisition and Ballmer couldn’t have his back on the deal, according to a 2014 report. In fact, the original deal only included the buyout of Nokia’s Here Maps division.
Nadella, working as the CEO since 2014, has given Microsoft a new identity. Now, the company is working hard to make a name in the cloud ecosystem, competing with giants like Amazon and Google. Recently, in collaboration with Facebook and Telxious, Microsoft announced Marea – a subsea cable with a bandwidth capacity of streaming 71 million HD movies.
Regarding mobile devices, Nadella has always wanted to create something that would revolutionize the mobile device ecosystem. He has expressed this thing in the past and the same thoughts can be found in his book.
“Buying a company with weak market share is always risky. We should only be in the phone business when we have something that is really differentiated.”
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