Withings acquired by Nokia
withings.com
withings.com
No way they would get away with that, especially as they're both European companies and consumer protections laws tend to be a lot better here than in the US (where if I remember correctly Nest pulled something like that recently).
I'm curious. Why would you think they couldn't get away with it? I don't have one of these scales but I'd guess that they function as ordinary scales just fine (i.e. accurate readings), without the backend stuff. The 'cloud features' are probably under some ToS that lets them do whatever they want (like shut it down). The fact that people bought it for exactly that feature doesn't seem to have much bearing.
[0] http://www.withings.com/uk/en/products/smart-body-analyzer
Edit: Also under EU law if a product does not function as advertised you have a minimum two-year guarantee. So the company "must repair or replace them free of charge or give you a price reduction or a full refund." Unless the product continued doing everything it says on that sales page I linked Nokia would probably have to refund me and in many countries in the EU you are given even longer that the minimum required two years.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/nokia-withings-acquisition-news/
The purchase price seems to be on the low end; Withings do have a lot of personal customers info related to health and activities so I was thinking an acquisition price will be higher.
When I look at the corporate history of Nokia and see that they used to be in industries completely unrelated to electronics, let alone mobile phones, I have this tiny inkling of hope that they still know how to make big pivots. That's probably simplifying their corporate history too much, but the point is that Nokia wasn't even always a phone company. Things can change.
There was recently an article which revealed some of Nokia's plans to keep on developing 5G networks. Seemingly the idea is to integrate this technology to many of its new IoT devices: http://www.image.fi/image-lehti/uusi-nokia-on-uusi-nokia (in Finnish)
(I wish all cloud based services would have this type of export facility).
The good IoT devices of the future won't be refrigerators with LCDs running Android grafted to them, they'll be more akin to smart interfaces electronic devices. If I’m right, the future of Nokia could be surprising.
However, Nokia is not a brand that I associate with statements like "creating beautifully designed products" or general consumer products period. I wasn't aware they're tapping back into the general consumer market after selling off its mobile division? (Though I did hear something about making a come back in making phones for Nokia)
Do I really need mention their phones of old? As for consumer products, all I've owned are a set of their Bluetooth noise-canceling headphones (also "of old" considering I've had them for 5 or 6 years). They're awesome, and I'll be sad when they die. That's all I know, but it's enough that I wouldn't immediately discount the idea that Nokia can make decent consumer products.
(Also, Frog Design is based in Palo Alto, and their web site doesn't list a Helsinki office.)
For unix nerds: yes, Nokia now owns Bell Labs.
Nokia has a market cap of $23B and did $14B in revenue over the last year.
As far as I know, this is their first reentry into consumer products since getting out of the mobile phone business.
On a past life, I was one of those employees that had the "pleasure" to do competence transfer to my replacements in NSN India.
Jokes aside, I think Nokia has great potential in the wearables category.
My guess is that if you have a lot of investors, they might pressure you to sell so they can get back on their investment?
I guess I just don't really understand the letter you'd have him write instead.
Yes, this can happen. But it doesn't hurt to consider a particular event in context, instead of writing off every acquisition and blindly condemning everyone involved.
And that is why this will likely fail.
> A three-company merger formed the Nokia Corporation in 1967; Nokian Tyres Limited was established in 1988 as a joint venture company split from the conglomerate as Nokia Corporation started focusing entirely on the mobile communications business.
The name of the company comes from a river which is the location of that wood pulp mill (sold out by Nokia over 20 years ago).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_water_supply_contaminati...