(Telecompaper) The European Commission (EC) has cleared the proposed acquisition of Nokia's devices and services business by Microsoft. The EC concluded that the deal would not raise any competition concerns, in particular because there are only modest overlaps between their activities. It decided that the links between Microsoft's mobile operating systems, mobile applications and enterprise mail server software with Nokia's smart mobile devices are unlikely to lead to rivals being shut out from the market. The EC assessed the effects of the acquisition on competition in the field of smart mobile devices. It found that overlap of their operations was minimal and several strong competitors, such as Apple and Samsung, will continue to compete with the merged entity.