The company currently focuses on large-scale telecommunications infrastructures, technology development and licensing, and online mapping services. Nokia is also a significant contributor to the mobile telephony industry, having assisted in development of the GSM and LTE standards, and was, for a period, the largest vendor of mobile phones in the world. Nokia's dominance also extended into the smartphone industry through its Symbian platform, but it was soon overshadowed by the growing dominance of Apple's iPhone line and Android devices. Nokia eventually entered into a pact with Microsoft in 2011 to exclusively use its Windows Phone platform on future smartphones.

In September 2013, Microsoft announced that it would acquire Nokia's mobile phone business as part of an overall deal totaling €5.44 billion (US$7.17 billion). Stephen Elop, Nokia's former CEO, and several other executives joined the new Microsoft Mobile subsidiary of Microsoft as part of the deal, which was completed on 25 April 2014. In November 2014, Nokia began to license product designs and technologies to third-party manufacturers, to enable a continued presence for the Nokia brand in the consumer electronics hardware market.

On 15 April 2015, Nokia announced that it would acquire the French telecommunications equipment company Alcatel-Lucent for €15.6 billion.The predecessors of the modern Nokia were the Nokia Company (Nokia Ab),Finnish Rubber Works Ltd (Suomen Gummitehdas Oy) and Finnish Cable Works Ltd (Suomen Kaapelitehdas Oy). The company's name came from the Nokia town and the Nokianvirta river.

Nokia Company's history started in 1865 when mining engineer Fredrik Idestam established a ground wood pulp mill on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids in the town of Tampere, in southwestern Finland (then, part of the Russian Empire). In 1868, Idestam built a second mill near the town of Nokia, fifteen kilometers (nine miles) west of Tampere, by the Nokianvirta river, which had better hydropower resources. In 1871, Idestam, with the help of close friend and statesman Leo Mechelin, renamed and transformed his firm into a share company, thereby founding Nokia Ab.

Eduard Polón (1861–1930), was a Finnish business leader. In 1898, Polón founded Finnish Rubber Works (Suomen Gummitehdas Oy), manufacturer ofgaloshes and other rubber products, which later became Nokia's rubber business. At the beginning of the 20th century, Finnish Rubber Works established its factories near the town of Nokia and began using its name as its product brand.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Mechelin sought to expand into the electricity business, but his aspiration was initially thwarted by Idestam's opposition. However, Idestam's retirement in 1896 allowed Mechelin to become the company's chairman (from 1898 until 1914), and he subsequently convinced shareholders. In 1902, Nokia added electricity generation to its business activities.

In 1912, Arvid Wickström founded Finnish Cable Works (Suomen Kaapelitehdas Oy), producer of telephone, telegraph and electrical cables and the foundation of Nokia's cable and electronics businesses. At the end of the 1910s, shortly after World War I, the Company was nearing bankruptcy. To ensure the continuation of electricity supply from Nokia's generators, Finnish Rubber Works acquired the business of the insolvent company.In 1922, Finnish Rubber Works acquired Finnish Cable Works. In 1937, Verner Weckman, a wrestler and Finland's first Olympic Gold medalist, became president of Finnish Cable Works, after 16 years as its technical director.After World War II, Finnish Cable Works supplied cables to the Soviet Union as part of war reparations. This gave the company a foothold for later trade.

Although these three companies—Nokia Ab, Suomen Gummitehdas, Suomen Kaapelitehdas—were not formally merged, as the law did not allow it at the time, Polón continued to create a successful conglomerate that later became Nokia PLC. Polòn was the chairman, managing director, and the largest owner of the group for 30 years.

The three companies, jointly owned since 1922, were merged to form a new industrial conglomerate, Nokia Corporation, in 1967.The new company was involved in many industries, producing at various times paper products, car and bicycle tires, footwear (including rubber boots), communications cables, televisions and other consumer electronics, personal computers, electricity generation machinery, robotics, capacitors, Military technology and equipment (such as the SANLA M/90 device and the M61 gas mask for the Finnish Army), plastics, aluminum and chemicals. Each business unit had its own director who reported to the first Nokia Corporation President, Björn Westerlund. As the president of the Finnish Cable Works, he had been responsible for setting up the company's first electronics department in 1960, sowing the seeds of Nokia's future in telecommunications.

Motorola designed and sold wireless network equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Motorola's home and broadcast network products included set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and network equipment used to enable video broadcasting, computer telephony, and high-definition television. Its business and government customers consisted mainly of wireless voice and broadband systems (used to build private networks), and, public safety communications systems like Astro and Dimetra. These businesses (except for set-top boxes and cable modems) are now part of Motorola Solutions. Google sold Motorola Home (the former General Instrument cable businesses) to the Arris Group in 2012.

Motorola's wireless telephone handset division was a pioneer in cellular telephones. Also known as the Personal Communication Sector (PCS) prior to 2004, it pioneered the "mobile phone" with DynaTAC, "flip phone" with the MicroTAC as well as the "clam phone" with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s. It had staged a resurgence by the mid-2000s with the RAZR, but lost market share in the second half of that decade. Later it focused on smartphones using Google's open-source Android mobile operating system. The first phone to use the newest version of Google's open source OS, Android 2.0, was released on November 2, 2009 as the Motorola Droid (the GSM version launched a month later, in Europe, as the Motorola Milestone). The handset division (along with cable set-top boxes and cable modems) was later spun off into the independent Motorola Mobility. On May 22, 2012, Google CEO Larry Page announced that Google had closed on its deal to acquire Motorola Mobility.On January 29, 2014, Google CEO Larry Page announced that pending closure of the deal, Motorola Mobility would be acquired by Chinese technology company Lenovo for US$2.91 billion (subject to certain adjustments). On October 30, 2014, Lenovo finalized its purchase of Motorola Mobility from Google.

History:

Motorola started in Chicago, Illinois as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (at 847 West Harrison Street) in 1928, when Paul V. and Joseph E. Galvin purchased the bankrupt Stewart Battery Company's battery-eliminator plans and manufacturing equipment at auction for $750. Galvin Manufacturing Corporation set up shop in a small section of a rented building. The company had $565 in working capital and five employees. The first week's payroll was $63.

The company's first products were battery-eliminators, devices that enabled battery-powered radios to operate on household electricity. Due to advances in radio technology, battery-eliminators soon became obsolete. Paul Galvin learned that some radio technicians were installing sets in cars, and challenged his engineers to design an inexpensive car radio that could be installed in most vehicles. His team was successful, and Galvin was able to demonstrate a working model of the radio at the June 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He brought home enough orders to keep the company in business.

Paul Galvin wanted a brand name for Galvin Manufacturing Corporation's new car radio, and created the name “Motorola” by linking "motor" (for motorcar) with "ola" (it was a popular ending for many companies at the time, e.g. Moviola, Crayola.). The company sold its first Motorola branded radio on June 23, 1930 to H.C. Wall of Fort Wayne, Indiana for $30. The Motorola brand name became so well-known that Galvin Manufacturing Corporation later changed its name to Motorola, Inc.

Galvin Manufacturing Corporation began selling Motorola car radio receivers to police departments and municipalities in November 1930. The company's first public safety customers (all in the U.S. state of Illinois) included the Village of River Forest; Village of Bellwood Police Department; City of Evanston Police; Illinois State Highway Police; and Cook County (Chicago area) Police.

Many of Motorola's products have been radio-related, starting with a battery eliminator for radios, through the first hand-held walkie-talkie in the world in 1940, defense electronics, cellular infrastructure equipment, and mobile phone manufacturing. In the same year, the company built its research and development program with Dan Noble, a pioneer in FM radio and semiconductor technologies, who joined the company as director of research. The company produced the hand-held AM SCR-536 radio during World War II, which was vital to Allied communication. Motorola ranked 94th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.

In 1943, Motorola went public and in 1947 became Motorola, Inc. At this time, Motorola's main business was producing and selling televisions and radios.

HTC is a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, a group of handset manufacturers and mobile network operators dedicated to the development of the Android mobile device platform. The HTC Dream, marketed by T-Mobile in many countries as the T-Mobile G1 or Era G1, was the first phone on the market to use the Android mobile device platform.

History:

Cher Wang (王雪紅), H. T. Cho (卓火土), and Peter Chou (周永明) founded HTC in 1997. Initially a manufacturer of notebook computers, HTC began designing some of the world's first touch and wireless hand-held devices in 1998.The company is credited with creating the first Android smartphone, the first Microsoft-powered smartphone (2002) and the first Microsoft 3G phone (2005). Their first major product, one of the world's first touch-screen smartphones, appeared in 2000. As an ODM for HP and Palm, HTC built the HP iPAQ and the Palm Treo 650.

In 2007 HTC acquired the mobile-device company Dopod International.

In October 2009, HTC launched the brand tagline "quietly brilliant", and the YOU campaign, HTC's first global advertising campaign.

In June 2010, the company launched the HTC Evo 4G, the first 4G-capable phone in the United States. In July 2010, HTC announced it would begin selling smartphones in China under its own brand name in a partnership with China Mobile.In 2010 HTC sold over 24.6 million handsets, up 111% over 2009.

At the Mobile World Congress on 16 February 2011, the GSM Association named HTC the "Device Manufacturer of the Year" for 2011. In April 2011, the company's market value surpassed that of Nokia, making HTC the third-largest smartphone-maker in the world behind Apple and Samsung.

On 6 July 2011, it was announced that HTC would buy VIA Technologies' stake in S3 Graphics, thus becoming the majority owner of S3. On 6 August 2011, HTC acquired Dashwire for $18.5M. In August 2011, HTC confirmed a plan for a strategic partnership with Beats Electronics involving acquiring 51 percent of Beats' shares.

On 27 September 2013, HTC announced that it sold back all remaining shares of Beats to Beats Electronics. The deal is expected to be closed in Q4 of 2013. The 2011 Best Global Brands rankings released by Interbrand, listed HTC at #98 and valued it at $3.6 billion.Based on researcher Canalys, in Q3 2011 HTC Corporation became the largest smartphone vendor in the U.S. with 24 percent market share, ahead of Samsung's 21 percent, Apple Inc.'s 20 percent and BlackBerry's 9 percent. HTC Corporation made different models for each operator.

During early 2012, HTC lost much of this U.S. market share due to increased competition from Samsung and Apple Inc.According to analyst firm comScore, HTC only accounted for 9.3% of the United States smartphone market as of February 2013. In light of the company's decrease in prominence, Chief Executive Peter Chou had informed executives that he would step down if the company's newest flagship phone, the 2013 HTC One, had failed to generate impressive sales results. HTC's first quarter results for 2013 showed its year-over-year profit drop by 98.1%, making it the smallest-ever profit for the company—the delay of the launch of the HTC One was cited as one of the factors. In June 2012, HTC moved its headquarters from Taoyuan City (now Taoyuan District) to Xindian District, New Taipei City.

In August 2013, HTC debuted a new "Here's To Change" global marketing campaign featuring actor Robert Downey, Jr., who signed a two-year contract to be HTC's new "Instigator of Change." On 15 August, HTC began airing the new marketing campaign on YouTube, prior to the campaign's appearance in television and cinema advertising schedules.

On September 27, 2013, HTC announced the sale of its entire stake (24.84 percent) in Beats Electronics. The company will close the deal in the fourth quarter of 2013 and expects a US$85 million pretax profit.

The 2013 HTC One was released in mid-2013 and, subsequently won various industry awards in the best smartphone and best design categories, but global sales of the HTC One were lower than those for Samsung's Galaxy S4 flagship handset and HTC recorded its first ever quarterly loss in early October 2013: a deficit of just under NT$3 billion (about US$100m, £62m). Marketing problems were identified by HTC as the primary reason for its comparative performance, a factor that had been previously cited by the company

Following the release of the HTC One, two variants were released to form a trio for the 2013 HTC One lineup. A smaller variant named the HTC One Mini was released in August 2013, and a larger variant named the HTC One Max was released in October 2013. Similar in design and features to the HTC One, the upgraded aspects of the One Max include a display measuring 5.9 inches (15 cm), a fingerprint sensor and a removable back cover for expandable memory. The product was released into the European and Asian retail environment in October 2013, followed by a US launch in early November 2013.

In March 2014, HTC released the HTC One (M8) , the next version of the HTC One flagship, at press conferences in London and New York City. In a change from previous launches, the HTC One was made available for purchase on the company website and North American mobile carrier websites on the same day a few hours after the launch.

In April 2014, the smartphone company reported sales climbing 12.7 percent to NT$22.1 billion, the company's fastest growth since October 2011.

At the March 2015 Mobile World Congress in Barcenlona, HTC announced a new Head Mounted Display called the HTC Vive. At the same conference, they announced the 2015 HTC One Flagship device (the HTC One M9, the successor to the previous M8,) and the HTC grip, in partnership with under armour.

Windows Phone (WP) is a family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune.Windows Phone features a new user interface derived from Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.It was first launched in October 2010 with Windows Phone 7.

Windows Phone 8.1 is the latest public release of the operating system, released to manufacturing on April 14, 2014.

Windows 10 Mobile will succeed Windows Phone 8.1 in 2015; it emphasizes a larger amount of integration and unification with its PC counterpart—including a new, unified application ecosystem, along with an expansion of its scope to include small-screened tablets.

Windows Phone 8:

On October 29, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Phone 8, a new generation of the operating system. Windows Phone 8 replaces its previously Windows CE-based architecture with one based on the Windows NT kernel with many components shared with Windows 8, allowing applications to be ported between the two platforms.

Windows 10 (mobile):

Windows 10 (mobile) was announced on January 21, 2015, as a mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets with screens smaller than 8 inches running on ARM architecture. Its primary focus is unification with its PC counterpart in software and services; in accordance with this unification strategy, Microsoft began to phase out the Windows Phone brand from public usage in favor of using the "Windows 10" brand across all device classes (for instance, the Microsoft Store refers to smartphones that can be upgraded to the OS as being "Windows 10 ready") rather than using the name "Windows Phone 10".Microsoft has downplayed specific references to the Windows Phone brand in relation to it. However, critics have still considered the operating system to be an iteration and continuation of Windows Phone due to its lineage and similar overall functionality.The technical preview revealed the operating system's branding to be simply "Windows 10".