Nokia Siemens to Acquire Motorola Network Biz: Benefits Revealed

The move by Motorola, announced July 19, 2010, to sells its wireless network equipment business to Nokia Siemens sense. Until now, Motorola has been fighting an uphill battle against Nokia Siemens and Huawei, both of which are large global players. The sale will significantly improve Nokia Siemens' position in the United States and Japan, while allowing Motorola to put more money into its remaining two business areas, Motorola Mobility which would make smartphones including the hot-selling Droid X and a line of set-top boxes for televisions. The other unit, Motorola Solutions, makes public service and business radio systems, where it is a dominant player.

The deal also includes a cross licensing arrangement for patents from both companies. Motorola will keep its iDEN business, which is used by Sprint for push-to-talk communications. Until the sale, the networks business has been part of the Mobility business. While the deal accomplishes a number of key business benefits for both companies, it also gives U.S. enterprises more options in terms of deploying wireless networking solutions. For any CIO looking to upgrade to 802.11n or initiate a long-awaited wireless networking deployment, more competition is a good thing. According to Gartner Dataquest, 802.11n will account for almost 97 percent of the wireless products shipments by 2014, up from 35 percent in 2009.

Check out the full eWeek article on the Motorola-Nokia Siemens deal.