Microsoft's Acquisition of Nokia Set To Finalize Sometime in April

It’s been a little while since we’ve heard anything in the way of an official update regarding Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s handset business, but today both parties are finally providing a long awaited update. According to a post on “The Official Microsoft Blog”, the two companies expect for the deal to finalize sometime next month, in April, slightly behind an anticipated March finalization.

The deal will of course fold what essentially accounts for Microsoft’s biggest (and nearly only) Windows Phone 8 supporter, Nokia, directly into the company. The merger is expected to result in a higher level of cooperation between the Lumia handset division, which has been developing and marketing Windows Phone 8 handsets for some time now, and the Windows Phone team.

The Microsoft / Nokia deal comes at a slightly awkward time for both companies as Nokia has just recently announced the company’s first lineup of Android powered smartphones, the Nokia X, at MWC earlier this month. Nokia had been rumored to be considering abandoning the Windows Phone platform, a plan believed to be a result of frustratingly slow Windows Phone development progress within Microsoft. It has been suggested that Microsoft was “forced” to complete the Nokia acquisition deal, which is priced at $7.2 billion, as a direct result of these rumors.