This is quite plausible scenario, if that's what they want. The truth is that the smartest engineers have jumped ship a long time ago anyway to the network division or other companies, and rest of them will leave soon.
Most of what Microsoft bought was truly just dead weight and Elop. Also, the deal included just the employees and Nokia brand licensing, not patents or other valuable IP, so it's not comparable to Google/Motorola deal, which was mostly about patents.
The 'new' Nokia will soon release their new strategy, that'll be interesting. They have already released information that they will stay in 'device business' although they can't release phone products until 2016.