Microsoft to Acquire Nokia Handset Business on Friday

According to an official statement from Microsoft, the long-delayed agreement for the company to purchase Nokia's handset business will finally close this Friday, on April 25. Though the sum of $7.5 billion was agreed upon between the two companies as far back as September, pending approvals that had gone unanswered kept the transaction on hold. Now that all appropriate regulations have approved the deal, Microsoft has the green light to purchase Nokia's handset business.

Regulatory clearances in Asia, and especially China, prevented the deal from going through a month ago, but now that the regulations have been approved, Microsoft will be adopting the Nokia phone business into its own business model. Microsoft is expected to use the resources and innovation from Nokia to bolster Windows Phone performance levels.

Already, Nokia's Lumia smartphone line runs the Windows mobile operating system, and smartphones like it are likely to receive upgrades thanks to a closer relationship with Microsoft. In addition, Microsoft will be able to deliver Windows Phone services through Nokia mobile phones, which will easily expand the company's visibility and customer base.

Though Windows Phones are more popular than Blackberry, they are still considerably less popular than Google's Android phones and Apple's iOS. Android is the biggest player in the business right now, claiming 61.9 percent of 2013's overall tablet sales. Apple's iOS systems still raked in 36 percent of these sales, while Microsoft sat with just over 2 percent.

Ideally, Microsoft will be able to leverage their help from Nokia to catapult them higher into the consciousness of the consumer market. With Microsoft focusing on the software aspect of the mobile phones while using Nokia's resources to create the actual phone hardware, they just might be able to pull it off.