There are rumours in the tech world that the next acquisition of IT company Microsoft will be of Finnish phone maker Nokia.
Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin, with inside sources, has reported that Microsoft may buy Nokia.
Murtazin had earlier predicted that Nokia would dump its OS for mobile phones ‘Symbian’, which turned out to be true. In July 2010, he was sued by Nokia for possessing Nokia’s "property".
Nokia had then said in the official blog, "To be perfectly clear, we are defending our intellectual property by asking for the return of all unauthorised property in Mr. Murtazin’s possession."
Last week, Microsoft purchased internet telephone service provider Skype for $8.5bn. The company had also announced a software partnership with Nokia in February, this year, which Murtazin had predicted in December.
Now Murtazin says that the two companies will begin talks about the merger next week and the deal could be closed later this year.
"Both companies are in a big hurry," he writes.
After dipping sales and revenues last year and facing intense competition from Apple and Asian companies in the mobile market, Nokia had announced drastic changes in the company policies.
Nokia CEO and former Microsoft employee Stephen Elop had issued a memo in February which stated that Nokia is "standing on a burning platform."
It is also notable that while Microsoft has about $32.6bn in tangible assets, Nokia’s entire market cap is $32bn.
