Eric Johnson

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ATD Week in Review: The Inside Story of Microkia, Apple in China and Yahoo’s Fashion Model Logo

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa shake on the $7 billion deal.

SARI GUSTAFSSON/AFP/Getty Images

In case you missed anything, here’s a quick roundup of some of the news that powered AllThingsD this week:

  1. Late on Monday, Microsoft announced that it would spend $7.17 billion to buy the majority of Nokia’s cellphone unit. Nokia’s stock price has fallen precipitously since 2007, but news of the deal sent Nokia shares up and Microsoft shares down. John Paczkowski broke down the full deal by the numbers.
  2. So, just how did the mega-deal come to pass? As Ina Fried reported this week, the inside story of the purchase started with just three words: “Can we talk?”
  3. The Microkia deal also brought multiple Nokia execs into Microsoft, including Stephen Elop — who, as Kara Swisher argues, is now “in the front of the line to take over the software giant” after current CEO Steve Ballmer retires.
  4. In other acquisition news, Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten continued a recent pattern of aggressive expansion by buying Viki, a Hulu-like video site, for $200 million.
  5. After months of rumors, leaks and finally some official confirmation last week, Samsung unveiled its smartwatch, a watch that acts as a companion to a smartphone, the Galaxy Gear. The move puts Samsung ahead of most of the field (including Apple) in the race to get such a product in front of consumers, although in a surprising twist, Qualcomm announced its own smartwatch, the Toq, on the same day.
  6. Like ATD said, the event at which Apple is expected to unveil the next round of iPhones will be held this Tuesday, September 10, in Cupertino. It won’t be showing off a new Apple TV, but will update the software for its existing box. But wait, there’s more: Apple will also host satellite iPhone events three hours later in Beijing, Berlin and Tokyo.
  7. The first of those cities, Beijing, is a reminder of how increasingly important China is for the iPhone. With more than 700 million subscribers, China Mobile is the largest wireless carrier in the world, and the companies seem to have finally come to a deal, with word of less-expensive iPhones (which industry watchers call the iPhone 5C) ready to ship to China Mobile’s subscribers.
  8. After a 30-day rollout campaign, Yahoo finally settled on its new logo, which “kind of looks like it is a little hungry all the time, like some supermodel in a Vogue magazine spread.” The company may be settled, but the Internet is not, and has generated multiple alternatives that Yahoo could have chosen instead.
  9. Whisper may sounds like just another mobile-social startup, but VCs are dumping money into it and the company is reporting rapid growth — here’s why you should care.
  10. And lastly, eBay acquired Decide.com, a price-forecasting startup. The company’s 26 employees will be moving into one of eBay’s offices, and Decide will shut down at the end of this month.

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