Sony buys the Ericsson share of Sony Ericsson for €1.05 billion, with the two companies parting ways from a joint venture lasting around 10 years. 

Sony also gets ownership of 5 patent families and an IP cross-licensing agreement. 

The purchase kicks off what Sony calls the "four-screen strategy"-- linking smartphones, laptops, tablets and TVs with Sony network services such as Playstation Network and Sony Online Entertainment through similar interfaces and operating systems. 

The deal will also allow the Swedish Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson to focus on what it does best-- selling wired/wireless broadband hardware and managed services as it competes against Chinese giant Huawei.

Go Sony to Acquire Ericsson's Share of Sony Ericsson

Nokia  Q3 2011 sales fall by -13% Y-o-Y, reaching €8.98BN while overall mobile device shipments total 106.6M units (declining by -3% Y-o-Y)-- a "smaller-than-estimated" loss, the company says. 

Lower priced devices are the main Nokia sellers, with shipments reaching 89.8M units and growing by 8% Y-o-Y. Nokia smartphone shipments are the opposite, declining by -38% Y-o-Y to reach 16.8M units. 

Nokia says it will start shipping Windows Phone handsets this quarter.

Meanwhile, the Global Post reports some Nokia employees are getting paranoid and suspect CE Stephen Elop is actually a mole plotting to sabotage the company. 

The reason? Elop is not only non-Finnish, but also an ex-Microsoft employee-- and the Finns fear Elop (in a move worthy of a John le Carré novel) is purposely ruining Nokia business, driving company stock prices down in order to turn it into a cheap purchase for a Microsoft wanting to own a mobile device maker. 

The train of thought concludes-- Google did buy Motorola not that long ago after all. 

The fact Finland is something of a spiritual home to open source (being the birthplace to Linux Torvalds) only leads to a further sense of Microsoft hatred. 

What does the future reserve for Nokia? We might learn a bit more about that following the Nokia World conference on October 26th. 

Go Nokia Q3 2011 Interim Report

Go Nokia Workers Ask, is CE a Microsoft Mole? (globalpost.com)

Microsoft has a war fund of over €31 million (£28M) to give out to mobile makers-- and Nokia will get the biggest chunk, according to Mobile Today.

Nokia should receive around €23M (£20M) to promote its first Windows Phone device to the UK market, which should launch later this month.

The fund will go for advertising campaigns promoting the Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) launch, as well. The Mobile Today source says "Microsoft is funding a massive campaign with Nokia across every single media you can imagine... Microsoft is desperate to kick the hell out of Android. If they can get across how amazing Mango is they could really crack it this time."

Judging by those numbers, if Microsoft wants Nokia to sell 1 million Windows Phone devices, it will shell out €23 per phone.

Samsung will get the rest of the cash (around €8M) in order to push its major Christmas offering, the Omnia W.

The Mango update launched 2 weeks ago, and will be available on a number of new devices launching over the next few weeks.

Go Microsoft Pumpts £28M into Windows Phone Mango

Guess who was following the HP fire sale? Motorola was, as it launches the Xoom Family Edition-- a Best Buy exclusive selling for $379.

The only differences between the "new" model and the regular Xoom are less storage (the Family Edition has 16GB instead of 32GB) and a collection of pre-loaded apps.

Last August HP started selling off its remaining TouchPad stock for either $100 (16GB model) and $150 (32GB) per tablet, before producing one last TouchPad run following reports of cheap tablets "mysteriously" vanishing off shelves.

Will customers go for a cheap(er) Motorola tablet? Not likely-- customers will probably either prefer pay more for an iPad or wait for the $200 Kindle Fire.

Motorola is also said to be launching a sequel to the Xoom this week, with an announcement of sorts coming in the shape of a mysterious teaser video.

Go Motorola Announces Xoom Family Edition

Watch Teaser: Motorola's Next

Go Arise from the Grave: the TouchPad is (sort of) Back