Big New Mobile Deals

Mega-billion dollar deals between Verizon, Vodafone, Microsoft and Nokia. It’s all about mobile computing. We dive in.

Giant deals on the mobile – wireless – front this week.  Verizon ready to pony up $130 billion dollars – the second biggest acquisition in world history – to own all of Verizon Wireless.  To buy the chunk it doesn’t own from Britain’s Vodaphone.

Microsoft putting up $7 billion to buy Nokia’s mobile business.  A final admission that the desktop PC era is over.  That it has to go mobile to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android.  It’s all about mobile computing now, and how that will change our lives.

This hour, On Point:  The world goes mobile.  Our lives and billions follow.
- Tom Ashbrook

Brian Barrett, managing editor of the technology blog Gizmodo. (@brbarrett)
David Gerzof Richard, professor of social media and marketing at Emerson College. Founder of BigFish, a marketing and communications firm. (@davidgerzof)
Joe Brown, New York editor of Wired. (@joemfbrown)

The New York Times: Microsoft Acquires Nokia Units, and Leader -- "Microsoft said it had reached an agreement to acquire the handset and services business of Nokia for about $7.2 billion, in an audacious effort to transform Microsoft’s business for a mobile era that has largely passed it by."

USA Today: Vodafone completes Verizon Wireless sale for $130B -- "The largest U.S. wireless carrier is now 100% American. In one of the most expensive acquisition deals ever, U.K.-based Vodafone said Monday that it agreed to sell its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon Communications for $130 billion in cash and stock."

Bloomberg: Verizon Doubles Down on U.S. as AT&T Seeks a Hedge in Europe -- "Verizon’s gamble contrasts with AT&T Inc. (T), which is hunting overseas for acquisitions that would offer better returns than the U.S. McAdam already has used $5 billion in deals in his two-year tenure as CEO to invest in the American wireless business just as the industry’s revenue growth stalls. The Vodafone deal lays the groundwork for what McAdam is betting will be a demand boom for a broad range of telecommunications services."