Nokia shareholders have given their approval to a deal that would see Microsoft acquire Nokia’s entire Devices and Services business.
As the Financial Times reports, Nokia’s shareholders approved of the sale earlier this week, overwhelming voting to confirm the sale by a wide margin. How wide? 99.7 percent voted to make the sale.
With that approval in-hand, the deal can finally proceed forward. Microsoft announced that it would purchase Nokia Devices and Services back in September, at the time the company said that uniting Windows Phone with its biggest hardware maker would allow for faster innovation in both hardware and software.
Barring any unforeseen issues, the $7.2 billion deal is scheduled to formally close sometime in early 2014. Microsoft hasn’t clarified any of its immediate plans for Nokia’s Devices and Services division. With Nokia Devices and Services in hand, Microsoft is poised to become the third-biggest technology company to sell devices using its operating systems directly to consumers, after Apple and Google respectively.