It seems every time I look around, a tech company is buying another tech company. Think about how often we’ve seen this in the last several years. It happened again.
It was just announced phone maker Nokia acquiring health tech company Withings. Since 2008, Withings have made health based watches, fitness bands, sleep trackers, thermometers, and scales. The acquisition is worth $192 million and will include headquarters in Cambridge, MA, Paris and Hong Kong. Nokia, one of the top phone makers in the 1990s and 2000s, is struggling to keep up with the ever increasing smart technology based 2010s. They already have the virtual reality Ozo camera. At the Mobile World Congress in February, they announced new 5G and security technology. Withings is equally as excited as Nokia is. “We?ve been impressed with the plans the Nokia team has shared with us both for preventive health and patient care…we can start working together to determine our way forward,” said Withings CEO Cedric Hutchings. However, this acquisition between Withings and Nokia is going to do Europe a lot more good than Silicon Valley. Both are based in Europe, although Withings have some headquarters in Massachusetts. Will this new alliance be able to stand up to the Silicon Valley machine?
This would be an opportune time for them to make this merger. Silicon Valley has been struggling over the last several months. Now this happened? Nokia is anxious to be a worthy competitor in the smartphone game, and in the smart technology game in general. Withings will help Nokia with things like smart watches and other accessories, but I don’t see how this is going to help their smartphone game. But I’m near Cambridge, and could this help headquarters here? This may be a strange question, but could Withings and Nokia be a good thing for the greater Boston/Cambridge area? Could it even make this area compete with Silicon Valley technologically?