Microsoft has been a hardware company for a long time. With the release of the first Microsoft Mouse in 1983, the company that began with a version of BASIC written for what’s considered the first personal computer has had a successful side business selling hardware.
But now, Microsoft is no longer a dabbler. Early this morning, the company closed on its approximately $7.5 billion acquisition of Nokia’s hardware operations. Although Nokia is not the monster it once was – particularly in the smartphone arena – it remains the No. 2 seller of mobile phones in the world, behind Samsung. But the vast majority of those are not smartphones.
As Tom Warren at The Vergepoints out, Nokia sold 251 million mobile phones last year, only a small portion of which were running Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system.
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