Might NSN Choke on Its Moto Morsel?
That's because the European Commission has just approved NSN's acquisition of Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT)'s mobile networks business. (See EC Clears NSN/Moto Deal.)
The takeover, which gives NSN more products, customers, revenues, and much-needed market share in North American, looks like it will close early next year. (See Moto Gives NSN a WiMax Option in India, NSN & Moto: It's All in the Execution , NSN Expands in North America With Moto Buyout, and NSN to Buy Moto's Wireless Biz for $1.2B .)
But it's also likely to present a whole new set of integration problems to NSN, which hasn't really worked its way through the Nokia Networks + Siemens Communications merger headaches. (See No Sign of Recovery for Nokia Siemens and NSN's 2010 Confidence Slips.)
It'll be hard to tell just how well NSN will cope with its new family members until (in my view) at least 2012, and that could leave 2011 as yet another year when the main focus of the vendor is integration, rather than regaining lost market share, developing its product and services strategy, and closing major deals.
Some people in the industry have been quick to write off NSN as a company in a death spiral. (See NSN CEO: Don't Write Our Obituary.)
I don't think that's the case at all, but it'll need to make a clean, quick, and neat job of integrating Motorola if it's to change any of its doubters' minds.
— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading
Thanks patrick - great points.
And absolutely -- it should certainly be less of an issue than the original merger. And if it looks like NSN with Moto on board is a smooth running ship by H2 2011 I will be the first to commend you on your insight and NSN on a neat job well done.
Maybe my blog sounded more negative than I intended -- the key point I was trying to make is that after 3 years of bedding down as a new company and trying to find its groove, the integration of the Motorola business might extend that unsettled period through 2011, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to cause issues beyond that.