Nokia has been mentioned quite frequently lately. The Finnish company seems to have a lot going on at the moment, they’re trying to expand production and availability of their Android-powered N1 tablet, and they’ve purchased Alcatel-Lucent recently, though the deal won’t go through for another couple of months. After selling their Devices and Services business to Microsoft, the company seemed lost, but Nokia seems to have a comeback plan, despite the fact their financial results have been really bad lately. It is still unknown what the company intends to with Alcatel-Lucent once they purchase the company, because according to the company’s exec, we won’t be seeing an Android-powered Nokia-branded smartphone in the near future.
That being said, there’s another piece of Nokia news that has been all over the place lately, and it regards company’s HERE Maps division. Nokia’s Maps are one of the best known mobile mapping solutions out there, and do offer some things Google Maps do not support, you can download whole countries and use them offline, while you can only download certain areas in Google Maps. This is just an example, though, Nokia’s HERE Maps are here for a reason, and it seemed like there’s no way this Finland-based company will consider selling them, but… that’s not the case. Nokia’s exec has hinted quite recently that the company might opt to sell their Maps unit, and that surprised many people. Soon after he shared that news with the public, rumors started, a ton of companies were instantly mentioned to be interested in purchasing HERE Maps. That’s not all though, Facebook even signed a deal with Nokia to use their mapping solution across all platforms, which hinted that the social media giant is also interested, though that’s still a rumor as well. Numerous German automobile manufacturers were also mentioned lately, and same can be said about Uber. All of these companies are reportedly interested in acquiring HERE Maps, and Microsoft allegedly wants to acquire a minority share.
Well, according to a new report from Reuters, Nokia is in no hurry to sell HERE Maps, and is going to wait for ‘high quality bids. “Let’s give it more time…We may not end up selling it if we don’t get the right value. It has to be a good competitive deal for Nokia and our shareholders,” said Nokia’s CEO, Rajeev Suri, in a trade magazine interview. The deal for Nokia HERE could be worth up to $4 billion, and it will certainly be interesting to see what happens next. Either way, Nokia’s CEO has also added that the company has attracted ‘significant interest’ for HERE Maps.