Microsoft buys Nokia for S7.2 Billion

Microsoft buys Nokia for S7.2 Billion

Microsoft has announced that it plans to acquire Nokia's devices and services business, as well as license its patents and mapping services in a $7.2 billion deal.

As part of the transaction, Nokia will grant Microsoft a 10 year non-exclusive license to its patents as of the time of the closing of the deal and Microsoft will grant Nokia reciprocal rights. In addition, Nokia will grant Microsoft an option to extend this mutual patent agreement to perpetuity. Of the total purchase price of EUR 5.44 billion, EUR 3.79 billion relates to the purchase of substantially all of the Devices & Services business, and EUR 1.65 billion relates to the mutual patent agreement and future option.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will be coming back to Microsoft, and he will lead an expanded Devices team, which includes all of Microsoft’s current Devices and Studios work. Nokia board chairman Risto Siilasmaa will take over CEO duties while the Finnish firm looks for a new CEO to replace Elop.

Microsoft Office on Android Phones

Microsoft Office Mobile for your Android phone

Office 365 subscribers will be able to download the app from the Google Play store and activate it. 

Microsoft Office Mobile is the official Office companion optimized for your Android phone. You can access, view and edit your Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint documents from virtually anywhere. Documents look like the originals, thanks to support for charts, animations, SmartArt graphics and shapes. When you make quick edits or add comments to a document, the formatting and content remain intact.

One difference on Android: You can't buy a subscription to Office like you can in the iPhone app. (You'll have to go to the web for that.) But otherwise, you get the same Word, Excel and PowerPoint, optimized for the smaller real estate on a smartphone screen. Once you start editing in Word, for example, the "chrome" of the app disappears, letting you focus on the document.

It requires a $100-a-year subscription to Office and won’t be sold separately.

KEY FEATURES:
Access documents from virtually anywhere:
* Cloud – With your phone, you can access Office
documents that are stored on SkyDrive, SkyDrive Pro, or SharePoint.**
* Recent Documents – Office Mobile is cloud-connected. The documents you’ve recently viewed on your computer are readily available on your phone in the recent documents panel.
* Email Attachments – You can view and edit Office documents attached to email messages.
Office documents look stunning:
* Great-Looking Documents - Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents look great on your phone, thanks to support for charts, animations, SmartArt Graphics, and shapes.
* Optimized for phone - Word, Excel and PowerPoint have been optimized for the small screen of your phone.
* Resume Reading - When opening a Word document from SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro on your phone, it automatically resumes at the place where you left off reading, even if you last viewed the document on your PC or tablet.
* Presentation Views - The Slide Navigator view in PowerPoint lets you browse slides faster, while speaker notes help you practice your presentation.
Make quick edits and share:
* Edit - You can make quick edits to Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.
* Documents Remain Intact - Formatting and content remain intact when you edit Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents on your phone.
* Edit While Offline - Your device doesn’t have to be continuously connected to the network to work on an Office document that is stored online. You can view and edit recently used documents even while you’re offline. Your changes will be saved online when your device reconnects to the network or to Wi-Fi.
* Create – You can create new Word and Excel documents on your phone.
* Comments - You can review comments that have been made in Word and Excel documents on your phone and add your own comments.
* Share - When you’re done with your edits or comments, simply send the document in email or save it to SkyDrive or SharePoint.

Requirements: 
* A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to use this app. Qualifying plans include: Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 Small Business Premium, Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E4 (Enterprise and Government), Office 365 Education A3 and A4, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 University, and Office 365 trial subscriptions
NOTE: If you don’t have an Office 365 subscription,  you can buy Office 365 Home Premium from http://www.office.com. With Office 365 Home Premium, you also get the latest version of Office for up to 5 PCs, Macs, and Windows tablets - and an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive cloud storage and Skype world minutes***.
* Requires a phone running Android OS 4.0 or later.
* Microsoft Office 2013 on a PC is needed for features like recent documents and resume reading.
**Office 365 account and setup necessary. Data connection required. Storage limits and carrier fees apply.
***SkyDrive storage and Skype world minutes are not available in all markets.

The app is currently only available in the United States, but Microsoft says it will be available in dozens of other countries over the next "several weeks" — from Albania to Zimbabwe.