Nokia CEO denies acquisition talks with Microsoft

By on Jun 1, 2011 at 4:29 PM
Business June 1, 2011

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop on Wednesday responded to reports that Nokia had agreed to sell its cell phone business to Microsoft for $19 billion. BGR was first to report the rumor, sourced from industry insider Eldar Murtazin. “We have a great plan for our future, and we’re focused on executing that plan,” Elop told Bloomberg in an interview. “The rumors are all over the place. There’s no basis for them.” According to Bloomberg’s report, Elop claims not only that a deal hasn’t been reached, but that Nokia has never discussed a potential acquisition with Microsoft.

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  • Anonymous

    Nokia and MS are so confused in their strategy.

  • http://twitter.com/UrbanEnigma Yves

    So either he’s lying or BGR is the tech equivalent of a gossip blog

    • Drew

      I would lean to the latter on that one…

    • Don

      That^  They must feel like complete idiots now.

      • Anonymous

        Why?, Deutsche telecom CEO, said Tmo USA was not for sale (after rumors that it will merge with Sprint). And guess what happened?

  • Anonymous

    It is better to be accurate than first.

  • http://twitter.com/brianmccurtis Brian McCurtis, PMP

    BGR your headline was misleading and your source is not an “insider” but a gossip monger. We understand you want to increase the popularity of your blog however by starting such rumors you are risking your credibility which has been sorely damaged today.

    • http://www.bgr.com Jonathan Geller

      Unfortunately you have no idea what you’re talking about. Eldar has a proven track record, and was the first to report that Nokia would be dropping Symbian and switching over to Windows Phone OS, among countless other stories. Why would we doubt him this time?

      • Anonymous

        You’re right BGR but the headline was reaching a tad bit.. The headline should reference the fact its a rumor

      • sirpaul

        BGR, I miss the days when you used to be a fairly active commenter. I haven’t seen a comment from you in months (besides the main articles, of course)!

      • http://twitter.com/NICKVALENTIN0 Nick Valentino

        I can’t wait until someone takes your “license to lie” away.

    • Jussi Nieminen

      Eldar Murtazin is a very well known russian blogger who has a track record of telling mobile news before anyone has heard about them. He has also been able to get mobile phone prototypes from Nokia etc. before those have been officially released so I think it’s fair to say Eldar is mobile business insider.

  • http://www.techhog.com Michael T. Blake

    Well I guess after you all bashed us all over at Tech Hog DOT com for the “Fake” Nexus, you have your own “DUPED” report. Guess it affects us all, even the mighty BGR makes mistakes.

    • http://www.bgr.com Jonathan Geller

      TechHog is a joke.

      • http://www.techhog.com Michael T. Blake

        LOL, thanks Johnny Boy, that means a lot from a snot nose kid. Glad you could pull yourself away from burning $100 bills and hanging with Hef, you playboy, to insult a tech site that is a joke. Appreciate it.

      • http://www.bgr.com Jonathan Geller

        Anytime.

      • http://twitter.com/ChazClout ChazClout

        Geek fight! :D

      • sirpaul

        I took a look at techhog dot com for about 15 minutes just now….and Jonathan is right. It really is a joke.

      • Eric

        and so are you.

  • http://twitter.com/Liu_James James Liu

    I still wouldn’t be shocked if this did go through. I think it would be a great move by MS, they could have tighter integration of WP7 and the hardware.

  • Jussi Nieminen

    Eldar already responded on Twitter :)

    “Why Nokia stuff so angry about me today? If my facts baseless, then why you so angry? I think that you want better price, yeah? :) ” and “I hope that Walt Mossberg will ask Elop on D9 about meeting with Balmer in last two weeks. And ask him about “rumours” :) ” so it looks like Eldar sticks with what he’s said :) We’ll see how it turns out to be.

  • http://www.droiddoes.com/ Norm

    I wish Google would just buy nokia and save them with the power of the DROID OS.

    • Evan U

      You mean ANdroid OS. The DROID is a phone that runs ANDROID.

      • Anonymous

        You must be new here.

      • sirpaul

        To save you time at later times: Norm knows this. He is part of the BGR troll/satirist gang, along with  Goofan and a few others. They are a pretend extreme DROID fanboy base. For the most part they are not trolls, but very frequent posters that help keep the comments section alive with sarcastic comments about the beloved DROID FTW OS, the many DROID phones they own, and for their hate of crApple.

      • http://ocentertainment.net ocentertainment

        I’m going to start introducing every raging Apple, Android, and other fanboys I see in comment threads this way. Maybe if everyone thinks the trolls are all just clever jokesters, we’ll finally be able to start ignoring them! :D

  • Anonymous

    “BGR was first to report the rumor”

    I wouldn’t be so proud of that, guys.

    • Anonymous

      The guys track record is damn near perfect, dont be surprised if you hear there was more to the rumor.. Execs always lie, and with Nokia stock sinking like it has lead boots on they had better really try and get the 19 bil.. Cuz the Nokia WP7 crap is gonna sell but no where near what they are used to.. Android and Meego are closer to the old school Symbian, Winmo, and Palm OSes so users will go there.. 9 out of 10 Microsoft smartphone users in America have Windows Mobile..

  • drew dogg

    Palm denied it till the end too.

    • tim

      As did Dutch Telecom (T-Mobile)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000722296108 Herman Guerra

    Eldar vs. Elop.

  • Dvintin69

    microsoft sucks at mobile. they should quit the wireless game and stick to pc’s and xbox. windowsphone is an embarassment just like all windowsmobile builds before it. 

  • Dvintin69

    and as far as nokia goes, they are no longer relevant. nobody except poor people and old hags use regular flip phones or bar phones anymore. goodbye nokia

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