“If you were to look at how the smart­phone mar­ket has led seri­ous blows to Nokia, you might think the com­pany is doomed to clo­sure,” Tristan Louis writes for TNL.net. “But smart acqui­si­tions and an exten­sive patent port­fo­lio may make them extremely attrac­tive for the com­pany that served as the root of its prob­lems: Apple.”

“Over the last few years, Nokia has made a num­ber of bets on loca­tion and map­ping, with the 2007 U$8 bil­lion acqui­si­tion of Navteq,” Louis writes. “This acqui­si­tion made Nokia the largest provider of map­ping ser­vices in the world. In fact, the com­pany pro­vides map­ping ser­vices to Google, UPS, Fedex, and many of the largest play­ers in the auto­mo­tive industry.”

Louis writes, “Of course, an acqui­si­tion of Nokia would have quite an impact on Microsoft as it tries to make its way back into the mobile space. With Nokia as its most impor­tant part­ner, Microsoft’s hope to become a likely con­tender for con­sumers’ hearts might be dealt some­thing pretty close to a death­blow.”

Much more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "Fred Mertz" and "Brawndo Drinker" for the heads up.]