And Nokia aren't gone. MS didn't buy the company name.
They've sold their phone setup/patents - but still have tons of money and remain active in other areas of mobile communication that remain profitable, and cut off the area of their company that was losing money. Kind of the way people suggest Sony selling off their loss incurring TV division would improve the financial performance of the company and its other divisions as a whole.
The shareholders make more money when a company is profitable. A smaller, profit making company is preferable to a large, loss making company.
Nokia are happy, they've cut off the division that lost them billions last year, and added more billions to their warchest. MS are happy, they've just added 32000 people experienced in all levels of device production - added to their Devices division. And they're one step closer to being able to provide a truly vertical, cross platform OS and services suite - from business/network to consumer/client level. It's gonna be a big job, but this is a tremendously positive step.
