E-Business
Financial Bankruptcy Forced Nokia’s Acquisition by Microsoft-Analyst
Francisco Jeronimo, research director, European Consumer Wireless and Mobile Communications, IDC EMEA, has said that Tuesday’s announcement on Nokia’s acquisition by Microsoft signals the end of an era for both companies.
However, financial challenges on the part of Nokia forced it to embrace the purchase by Microsoft.
Both Nokia and Microsoft, Jeronimo said, have now embraced different strategies to be able to better compete in a completely different landscape where mobility is the driver.
“While Microsoft realized that it wouldn’t be possible to succeed without controlling the entire value chain, Nokia has realized that it needed a stronger ally with the financial muscle to continue driving its Lumia smartphones.
“The market has moved from a product to an ecosystem battlefield. In this new world, phone makers need to excel in the hardware and design, but more importantly they need to excel in the user experience, as well as services and content offering, which is extremely cash demanding.
“Moreover, as smartphone penetration continues to grow, manufacturers will only be able to increase their sales by attracting users from competitors, which requires huge investments.
Nokia realized it didn’t have the financial resources to become the third alternative to Apple and Samsung in the smartphone segment. Instead of waiting to see whether that would change and eventually risk running out of cash, it decided to sell itself to the only company really keen to invest in Windows Phone,” he said.
The IDC research director added that despite the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft on the operating system side, it was clear that both companies were moving at different speeds.
Since the agreement was closed in 2011, Nokia has been able to launch several Windows Phone devices quickly; addressing the lower price points the market needed and launching services across the range of devices to differentiate from other players.
He said: “On the other hand, the development of the operating system has been slow and far behind other operating systems. The Windows Phone OS hasn’t been able to attract the same number of developers and consequently it failed to attract users, who preferred other platforms due to the availability of more apps, more features, and more devices. Microsoft was relying on Nokia to make Windows Phone successful and Nokia was relying on Microsoft to grow the ecosystem. Now it is time for Microsoft to take onboard its own destiny.
“The tiny Windows Phone success has been driven by Nokia’s strong product development capabilities and the “blind” support from operators expecting to see much stronger support from Microsoft so they could have an alternative to Android and iOS. Therefore today’s (Tuesday’s) agreement will be well received by mobile operators as Microsoft will align the software and hardware development, speeding up the Windows Phone operating system, but more importantly it will give operators access to Microsoft’s deep pockets, which it will use to promote Windows Phones.
“We will probably see more agreements like this one in the future. The time for pure-play vendors has ended and the remaining ones haven’t understood that yet. The market will become more concentrated as economies of scale are important to survive in a market where profits will come from several slices of a pie rather than one single business, particularly if that business is hardware.
Jeronimo Mobile phone vendors will realize that the only chance to succeed is by merging with content providers, with bigger manufacturers, or less likely with an operator or a large retail chain. Whatever form it takes, concentration is key to survive as margins will continue to be squeezed by the dominant players.
While Nokia has realized that and is taking action, others will continue to see their financial situation deteriorate and will take the same decision when bankruptcy is a reality.
“Although Microsoft is buying the entire Nokia Devices unit, it is still unknown what the company will do with this segment. Feature phones continue to represent a significant percentage of worldwide shipments, but that will drastically change in the next few years. In the long term there is a small market opportunity in the segment, but in the short term it is important that Microsoft keeps the segment alive and profitable,” he maintained.
The IDC research director added that this will give Microsoft access to markets where feature phones are still the dominant segment and where the Nokia’s brand is still strong.
These markets will see an explosion in smartphones in the next few years and users will likely replace their basic phones with a smartphone from a make they already know and trust.
Attracting this first wave of smartphone adopters is crucial for Microsoft’s growth in these regions.
National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced the restoration of its National Identification Number (NIN) verification services nationwide.
This, according to the commission, follows the completion of a system maintenance exercise.
In a statement issued on Friday, the NIMC confirmed that all previously disrupted services have resumed.
“NIMC wishes to inform the general public that the recent technical maintenance has been completed and all services have been restored,” the statement read.
The NIMC urged Nigerians seeking to enroll for NIN to visit the its official website to locate the nearest enrollment centers.
The agency also encouraged individuals to make use of its self-service portal for tasks such as data modification, including name changes.
To further ease the verification process, the Commission recommended downloading the NIMC NameAuth app (oath.app) from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store for quick and secure NIN authentication.
NIMC expressed appreciation for the public’s patience during the service disruption, which had impacted banks, telecom providers, and government agencies that rely on NIN verification for their operations.
Many businesses are overestimating their defence against cyber attacks, which creates a significant human risk blind spot. A new KnowBe4 report exposes a worrying disconnect between what leaders think about their cyber security readiness and what employees experience.
According to the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025, based on insights from cyber security decision-makers across 30 African countries, despite high awareness, a critical gap exists in turning that awareness into actual readiness and resilient behaviour.
Key findings from the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025:
Confidence vs awareness: While cyber security awareness is high, leaders express uncertainty about their workforce’s ability to act on that awareness. Many feel employees may overestimate their capabilities in recognising, reporting and mitigating threats.
The need for adaptive and personalised security awareness training: Many companies fail to personalise security awareness training to specific roles or risk exposures.
Widespread BYOD usage: A large percentage of employees (between 41% and 80%) use their personal devices for work.
AI policy development is lagging: Many companies (46%) are still in the process of developing policies for using AI tools in the workplace.
Regional variation: Southern Africa trains more, East Africa governs AI better and West/Central Africa sees the most human-related security incidents.
This gap is significant because Africa has become an attractive target to cyber criminals, especially those that launch AI-powered attacks. A LexisNexis Risk Solutions study found 60% of South African organisations have seen an increase in AI-facilitated financial crime – above the 56% global average.
Kehinde Popoola, regional manager and key representative for West and East Africa at Rubrik, said digital transformation is gaining momentum in Africa and companies are more exposed to cyber risk. The Rubrik executive adds that amid an increase in threats, it is crucial that organisations adopt an assumed breach mindset.
The KnowBe4 research shows that cyber security preparedness and the actual structures required to support secure behaviour seem misaligned.
The report highlights that just 10% of cyber security leaders are fully confident that staff would report a phishing attack or other cyber threat, despite rating employee security awareness of cyber threats at four out of five or higher.
There is also a significant perception gap between decision-makers and general employees in Africa regarding security awareness training, with 68% of leaders believing that training is tailored to roles, compared to only a third of employees feeling adequately trained.
KnowBe4 asserts that many organisations only conduct annual or biannual training that is too generic to effectively change behaviour, contributing to uncertainty about its effectiveness.
According to another report, the KnowBe4 African Cybersecurity and Awareness Report 2025, which focuses on end-user based responses, only 43% of African respondents felt confident in their ability to recognise a cyber threat, and just one in three believed their security awareness training was adequately tailored to their role. This comparison suggests the development of a dangerous perception gap in many organisations.
“There’s a disconnect here – between what leaders think is happening and what employees are actually experiencing,” says Anna Collard, SVP content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa. “The data shows that without procedural and cultural follow-through, awareness simply doesn’t translate into readiness.”
“The continent’s cyber security posture may be more confident than it is truly resilient,” Collard adds.
Kaspersky has detected a rapidly escalating malicious campaign that has targeted over 1,100 corporate users since June 2025. The attackers pose as a legal firm and in their emails threaten recipients with lawsuits over alleged domain name patent violations, aiming to deploy malware.
Victims who opened and launched the attached files – that mimicked legal documents – had a Trojan installed on their devices, and the attackers could spy on the content of their screens. Organisations across healthcare, finance, and education sectors have been targeted.
The campaign began with 95 emails on June 11 and has since continued to escalate. Apart from claiming that the recipient’s domain name violates patented combinations of a major brand and threatening litigation, in the email the fake legal bureau also expresses the patent holders’ interest in acquiring the domain and offers getting acquainted with the details of the alleged violations by opening the attached archive with “documents”.
It is worth noting that the attackers, likely to avoid detection, attach an archive that is not password protected, and inside it includes another archive that is password protected and a file containing the password along with it.
After the user entered the archive password and clicked on the alleged legal document inside, a Trojan was installed on the device. The user saw a message displayed that read, “This document cannot be opened on this device. Try opening it on another windows device,” and simultaneously the Tor Browser was covertly downloaded and installed in the background.
Through it, the malware regularly sent snapshots of the user’s screen to the attackers over the Tor network. The malware also autostarts whenever the computer is restarted.
“This campaign is a sophisticated blend of psychological manipulation and technical deception, leveraging fear of legal action to coerce businesses into executing harmful files hidden in attached archives. Its rapid growth since June 11 underscores the urgency for organisations to bolster defenses.
Victims face the risk of losing their private data. Robust email security, employee training, and swift incident reporting are essential to counter this evolving threat,” comments Anna Lazaricheva, spam analyst at Kaspersky.
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