Welcome to the Vertically Integrated World of Windows Phone! Microsoft Buys Up Nokia's Handset Business and Patents for 5.4 billion Euros; Elop to run Devices

A Confluence of Factors Led to this Deal - Starting with the Lumia Partnership

Nokia's market share has been declining and Microsoft wants expansion in the mobile space, and for this Microsoft is willing to pay over five billion euro in cash. 

This confluence of factors has caused Carolina Milanesi at Gartner to pronounce that the deal came at "the right time".

Microsoft and Nokia have had a mobile partnership over the last two and a half years in the form of the Nokia Lumia (which uses the Windows Phone operating system).

Key People Mentioned in the Deal Rhetoric:

Here is a multinational team responsible for managing the Microsoft+Nokia mobile initiative.

• Steve Ballmer (American) - has come on record that he does not intend any major geographic shifts in terms of moving people and teams. Well done Steve for engineering this deal and also reassuring employees by reducing potentially disruptive changes during the transition!
• Stephen Elop (Canadian), a Microsoft alumnus, and head of Nokia, now returns to Microsoft and will take charge of the "Devices" unit that includes Microsoft Surface.  He has a Bachelors in Computing and a Doctor of Laws from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Good luck Stephen in running the Devices division of Microsoft!
• Timo Toikannen (Finnish), from the Nokia side, will continue to lead the Mobile Phones team. He has a Master of Law from the University of Helsinki and King's College London and established legal operations for Nokia's mobile business in Asia-Pacific. He joined Nokia in 1995 and then joined the leadership team from July 2012, more than 15 years later.