Reorganizations
In April 2003, the troubles of the networks equipment division caused the corporation to resort to similar streamlining practices on that side, including layoffs and organizational restructuring. This diminished Nokia's public image in Finland,and produced a number of court cases and an episode of a documentary television show critical of Nokia.
On February 2006, Nokia and Sanyo announced a memorandum of understanding to create a joint venture addressing the CDMA handset business. But in June, they announced ending negotiations without agreement. Nokia also stated its decision to pull out of CDMA research and development, to continue CDMA business in selected markets.
In June 2006, Jorma Ollila left his position as CEO to become the chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and to give way for Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
In May 2008, Nokia announced on their annual stockholder meeting that they want to shift to the Internet business as a whole. Nokia no longer wants to be seen as the telephone company. Google, Apple and Microsoft are not seen as natural competition for their new image but they are considered as major important players to deal with.
In November 2008, Nokia announced it was ceasing mobile phone distribution in Japan. Following early December, distribution of Nokia E71 is cancelled, both from NTT docomo and SoftBank Mobile. Nokia Japan retains global research & development programs, sourcing business, and an MVNO venture of Vertu luxury phones, using docomo's telecommunications network.
Acquisitions
The Nokia 6300, a member of the Nokia 6000 series, Nokia's largest family of phones.On September 22, 2003, Nokia acquired Sega.com, a branch of Sega which became the major basis to develop the Nokia N-Gage device.
On November 16, 2005, Nokia and Intellisync Corporation, a provider of data and PIM synchronization software, signed a definitive agreement for Nokia to acquire Intellisync. Nokia completed the acquisition on February 10, 2006.
On June 19, 2006, Nokia and Siemens AG announced the companies would merge their mobile and fixed-line phone network equipment businesses to create one of the world's largest network firms, Nokia Siemens Networks.Each company has a 50% stake in the infrastructure company, and it is headquartered in Espoo, Finland. The companies predicted annual sales of €16 bn and cost savings of €1.5 bn a year by 2010. About 20,000 Nokia employees were transferred to this new company.
On August 8, 2006, Nokia and Loudeye Corp. announced that they had signed an agreement for Nokia to acquire online music distributor Loudeye Corporation for approximately US $60 million. The company has been developing this into an online music service in the hope of using it to generate handset sales. The service, launched on August 29, 2007, is aimed to rival iTunes. Nokia completed the acquisition on October 16, 2006.
In July 2007, Nokia acquired all assets of Twango, the comprehensive media sharing solution for organizing and sharing photos, videos and other personal media.
In September 2007, Nokia announced its intention to acquire Enpocket, a supplier of mobile advertising technology and services.
In October 2007, pending shareholder and regulatory approval, Nokia bought Navteq, a U.S.-based supplier of digital mapping data, for a price of $8.1 billion. Nokia finalized the acquisition on July 10, 2008.
In September, 2008, Nokia acquired OZ Communications, a privately held company with approximately 220 employees headquartered in Montreal, Canada.
On July 24, 2009, Nokia announced that it will acquire certain assets of cellity, a privately owned mobile software company which employs 14 people in Hamburg, Germany. The acquisition of cellity was completed on August 5, 2009.