In an attempt to save some money, Nokia has decided to sell off their wireless modem business to Renesas Electronic for $200 million dollars. Included in the deal are 1,100 of their employees, who will now work for Renesas. The reason for the deal stems from Nokia’s inability to keep up with manufactures like Huawei and ZTE, which has forced them to constantly reduce their product prices. Back in 2007 Nokia was selling devices for 120 euros and now are selling them for just 30 euros!
This is somewhat surprising coming from Nokia but may come with some silver lining. Now that they have sold their wireless modem business, they will be able to focus on new technologies such as Evolved High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA+, the technology AT&T is using to improve their 3G network) and Long-Term Evolution (LTE, the 4G technology Verizon will be using for their upcoming 4G network). This translates into great news for consumers because it’s another manufacturer that will be designing LTE equipment in the future.
