In a late night Labor Day twist, Microsoft announced that they would be acquiring Nokia’s devices and business services for $7.2 billion. The deal, pending official approval, would be finalized sometime by the first quarter of 2014.

What does this mean for Microsoft and Nokia? For starters, it provides Nokia to be saved by the possibly of future bankruptcy. Nokia has not fared well in recent years to become the once-dominant cell phone maker in the world. Though it is still very much popular overseas, the market is now dominated worldwide by the likes of Samsung and Apple. As for Microsoft, it provides them a Google-like acquisition to have a sole hardware maker all to themselves. After all, it’s worked out so far for Google, hasn’t it?

With any sort of major news of tech purchases, it doesn’t come without critics. And those critics have made their feelings known that both Microsoft and Nokia are two sinking ships in the market (Nokia with phones, Microsoft with hardware). But it doesn’t have to be seen that way.  Think about this: since Microsoft loves integration as much as Apple does, why not use Nokia to their advantage? Since they already have Surface tablets with Windows 8.1 and the new Xbox One being released in the coming months, why not use Windows Phone to integrate better with all three, similar to Apple’s iPhone-iPad-Apple TV connection? It might give them a possible fighting chance against Google. But Google has already up the ante with introducing Chromecast, which can connect to an HDTV and stream Chrome, YouTube and Google Play services using a Windows or Mac Chrome browser, Android and iOS. Microsoft needs to catch up to that, as well as fix that broken browser they call Internet Explorer.

These same outcries of uncertainty with this deal is nearly similar to the Google-Motorola deal made back in 2011. There were definitely question marks on why Google would want a sinking ship like Motorola. Remember, Motorola was in this same kind of situation Nokia is as once being a top phone brand when Razrs were deemed cool enough for everyone to have: from the children to the elderly. Alas, Motorola never has had an extremely popular following overseas the way Nokia had. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing one. Now, in the United States, unless it’s Apple, Samsung, LG or even HTC, no other brand is deemed relevant enough to be at the top of the mantle.

Speaking of relevance, what does all this mean for the likes of Blackberry? Blackberry is another, like Nokia and Motorola, that has had much success, primarily in the business and enterprise department. But over the last couple years, it has lost most of its consumer base, as Android and iOS have taken number 1 and number 2, respectively. At the moment of this writing, Blackberry is currently up for sale. However, their value has been deemed too low for anyone to take a serious interest in purchasing the company. There is a decent list of possible buyers that could consider taking up the sale. One that should consider it is Samsung.

Samsung has made it clear in the past that they would to seek creating their own OS to go with their already-popular list of handsets. They have smartphones, and they have tablets. If Samsung was really serious about dumping Android and branching out with their own OS (see Palm), they would try to compete against the like of Apple and iOS, who makes their own OS for their smartphones and tablets. How well could that work? It’s hard to say, but having a third or fourth option wouldn’t hurt too much. In a time where digital technology has become more and more accepted and the norm, these deals could very well shape out how the smartphone and tablet market will be in the next few years. Most consumers already own more mobile devices than TV’s, so it would make sense to do as much as possible to be innovative, even at the expense of known companies going away, unfortunately.

The Microsoft-Nokia deal could mean one of two things: it could either be the best thing that could happen for Microsoft or end up being a disaster that they won’t be able to get out of. As for Blackberry, Samsung should come knocking at the door for negotiations. Otherwise, there’s Sony, Lenovo, Asus or even Acer that might step in. Either way, this may be only the beginning of what’s to come.