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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

Is there any large acquisition that succeeded in the last 10 years?

You might have the wrong criteria for acquisition success. I'm sure both Nokia and MS knew these layoffs would come before they agreed to the purchase.

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I'm sure Nokia itself knew these layoffs were likely-to-inevitable whether that deal happened or not.

If that was the case, do you think most of the Nokia employees were actively looking for another job and were just riding the gravy train until it finally pulled into the station?

I would think if I worked at Nokia and we were acquired by Microsoft, I'd probably be looking for another job fairly quickly. Considering the writing was on the wall for a while even before they were acquired by MS.

If they weren't before, they will be now that Microsoft's layoffs over the next six months hang over everyone's heads. Microsoft should have ripped the bandaid off in one quick move so other employees will feel secure.

That will largely depend on the severance packages.

Those who stuck around through the merger and take take the first-round cuts offer will likely make out pretty well. Unfortunately for Microsoft, this means that they're largely paying for people with good strategic skills and a high capacity to find work elsewhere to leave.

It's the ones who stay put, largely out of lack of strategic skills and/or alternative options, who are going to be less valuable to the company. There may be further incentives but they're likely to not be as generous.

Or so say the rational expectations theorists.

Did MS? Including the cost of the lay off ($1.6b says Recode), Nokia price was actually $8.8b. What was their business case that was so easily scrapped just months into the purchase?

It may be successful on a tax/accounting perspective since the purchase was made in € with cash that couldn't be brought to the US.

Yet this does look like a gigantic waste of assets. Warren Buffett says that a successful business is all about mindfully allocating its resources. This looks like the oppsite - no wonder that Nadella has a hard time explaining what happens in simple words.

It can be argued that their patent portfolio was worth about that much.

Except that Microsoft didn't get the Nokia patents, merely a license to use them.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/us-nokia-microsoft...

Don't underestimate the value of the Nokia brand. Until recently, IIRC, Nokia was the world's largest seller of mobile phones. That brand image is worth a ton to help MS sell its phones.

Right up until they went windows phone only. The result is nokia's sales dropping, not windows phone sales increasing.

Coincided with yes, but saying it was the result of is making a fault with logic as I am sure you are aware.

Microsoft only has license to the Nokia brand through the end of 2015 (Nokia is still a separate company).

Adding layoff costs to the purchase price doesn't seem right. Severance is the bulk of it, and that's money you would have paid anyway if you had kept the employees on.

There's no evidence that the initial case for the acquisition was scrapped. On the contrary, it's almost a given that MS was aware of the post-deal costs. This is all quite normal for M&A deals.

Success is highly subjective. Perhaps you mean different?

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