Wacky Idea: A Yahoo-Nokia Combination

As the MicroHoo dance continues, here’s a wacky idea that just occurred to me: why doesn’t Nokia invest in or acquire Yahoo? It’s partly suggested by this Fortune article that discusses the challenges that the world’s leading handset maker faces in penetrating North America.

Nokia has added a bunch of online services that try and bridge the internet and mobile. Indeed, Nokia is trying to position itself as an internet company of sorts. And mobile search will be a big ad-revenue driver in the medium term. It’s already a critical element of an overall mobile offering.

Yahoo, obviously, is making a huge mobile push and has relationships with carriers and OEMs around the globe. Yahoo’s content and online presence would bolster Nokia’s efforts to attract users and build services (both in mobile and online), especially in the US market. Yahoo Mail has generally been the top mobile site in the US market:

Nokia’s reach would help Yahoo in mobile in myriad ways around the world. The two companies already have a partnership that offers some of Yahoo’s services on Nokia phones.

I’m not a financial analyst and don’t know whether there are any debt or equity issues that would be a problem in such a deal. But there’s something fairly complementary here in my opinion.

Just a wacky thought — or is it?