The future
Motorola said the deal will provide a ‘clear path' for moving to next generation technologies.
Greg Brown, Co-CEO of Motorola, said: "This is great news for our customers, our investors and our people and will allow us to sharpen our strategic focus on providing mission and business critical solutions for our government, public safety, and enterprise customers."
Verizon has greeted the announcement as ‘good news for the wireless industry' as it brings together two of its major suppliers.
Nokia Siemens Networks believes it will be the third largest infrastructure vendor in the US, biggest foreign wireless vendor in Japan and build on its number two position in the global infrastructure segment once the deal is complete.
It also considers Motorola's position, providing services for wireless networks including CDMA, GSM, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE will serve it well going forward. Motorola is the market leader in WiMAX with 41 contracts covering 21 countries as well as strong footprints in other platforms.
"As customers look to transition from CDMA networks to next generation technologies, the addition of the Motorola wireless network infrastructure business is targeted to ensure that we are well placed to meet those needs. Together, we will utilize the combined strength of Nokia Siemens Networks' TD-LTE solutions and Motorola's WiMAX and LTE businesses, to better meet customers' evolving technology and business needs," said Bosco Novak, head of customer operations at Nokia Siemens Networks.
The deal will be a boost to Nokia which has fallen behind in the smartphone race according to YouGov's Smartphone Mobile Internet Experience study.
The report found just one third of Prospective smartphone buyers will consider Nokia, a drop of 12 percent from six months ago. Only 10 percent of those surveyed expect to purchase a Nokia phone, half the amount of those in December 2009.
Customers are dropping the brand because of the lack of available apps and perceived poor quality of the operating system, said the study.
Russell Feldman, Research Manager in YouGov's technology and telecoms team said: "Where Nokia once led the market, it has drastically fallen by the wayside. Its OVI store continues to be significantly outperformed by both Apple's Apps store and Android Marketplace. The results of our data consistently show that the market leader is fast becoming an also ran in the smartphone market. New products, software and apps are needed soon if Nokia is to keep up with its rivals."
