That was the best shape for a cell phone.
The speed with which Microsoft wrote that down was amazing. I was a die-hard Windows Phone user and saw Microsoft’s $7.5B outlay as proof that they were going to stay in the phone sector, even though they had about 2% market share at the time. Oops. My Windows phones are paperweights now. Fantastic cameras in the Nokia stuff back then. IIRC, the Nokia acquisition was Balmer, and the write-off was Nardella’s first act.