The mobile market is a booming business, with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android products both making strides in recent quarters, comfortably ahead of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, though both lag behind Nokia’s Symbian technology. By the third quarter of 2010, lowly Microsoft lagged in market share considerably, at a mere 2.8%.
The times may be a changing’, however, and a big new business acquisition might soon tip the scales. Microsoft, the Redmond, Washington – based computer and technology giant, seems primed to make a splash into another segment of the mobile market. After recently acquiring Skype, the internet-based telecom service, Microsoft still has $32 billion left in cash – essentially the same amount as Nokia’s market capitalization.
While an agreement was reached between the two companies weeks ago to begin making the Microsoft Windows operating system available on Nokia’s mobile units, a new potential move to acquire Nokia, the Finnish company which is the world’s largest mobile unit manufacturer, could position Microsoft with a competitive business advantage to land it atop both segments of the mobile market.
It’s unclear just how far along aquisition negotiations are, but such a business purchase transaction could be one of the largetst and most impactful in the WA-based corporation’s history.