Nokia and Microsoft Announce Strategic Partnership
by Mithun Chandrasekhar on February 11, 2011 11:28 AM EST- Posted in
- Nokia
- MeeGo
- Microsoft
- Smartphones
- windows phone 7
- symbian
- Mobile
Today Nokia and Microsoft have announced a partnership that will collectively leverage Microsoft and Nokia's strengths and resources. Although the fruit of this long-term partnership will primarily affect Windows Phone 7 and Nokia's smartphone line-up, other areas of either companies business' will also be getting some of the good stuff.
The partnership primarily aims to leverage Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform and eco-system along with Nokia's hardware expertise and market/carrier reach around the world to build a new line-up of Nokia branded smartphones running Microsoft's mobile OS. But things aren't as cut and dry. Although the software driving these devices will be WP7, Nokia will be integrating some of its own software components into the platform. Primarily, this will be the excellent 'Maps' application, which moving forward, Microsoft will also be using in its own Bing eco-system.
Although Nokia insists that Symbian and Meego will not die, it is quite clear that Symbian will eventually be put to rest and whatever core Symbian IP Nokia has, could be absorbed into the Windows Phone codebase. Meego on the other hand will continue to live the existence as Nokia's 'expirmental platform' of choice, with a Meego device expected sometime this year. Nokia has also mentioned that it's 'Qt' framework will not be coming to WP7.
Clearly, the mobile devices market in 2011 is going to be much more interesting (and potentially beneficial) for the consumer. Apple and Google will seriously have to re-think their stratergies now that they have three very strong and able competitors in HP's excellent webOS, RIM's promising QNX and now Nokia-Microsoft's extensive partnership.
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LostPassword - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
Cool. I would love to see an updated n8 with wp7 and better hardware. I just hope they keep features like HDMI out, USB otg, pentaband, and cameraShadowmaster625 - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
Is absordbed a finnish word?mythun.chandra - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
No. It is an English word, written by an Indian who was getting late for work! :pThanks :)
YukaKun - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
I don't thing this will be something in between "good" or "bad"; it will simply be "Fantastic" or "Catastrophic".Hope Nokia can teach MS to be on time with their OS, so they don't get screwed over this "partnership" and MS actually learns to deliver without lawyer-rumble.
I have VERY high expectations of this, just hope we get another big player in the market, cause I'd say we need it. And by player, I mean Phone+OS.
GL Nokia!
Cheers!
Lonyo - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
Nokia has fairly nice phones (although build quality is sometimes rather questionable) and some nice software (mostly the in-house stuff like Ovi Maps, which I absolutely love), and MS has more software expertise.I think you're right. It will either be awesome or horrible, but it's what Nokia really needs, and what MS really needs. It moves Nokia forwards, and gives MS a really strong foothold.
Exodite - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
I can only see 'catastrophic' TBH, for Nokia anyway.WP7 has nothing on Symbian, on a functional level.
The UI is different, certainly better than S^3 even if it's not personal ideal, but WP7 is basically iOS for people who won't buy Apple products. It's just as locked and controlled and extremely limited functionally.
My gf has an N8 and if you ignore the pure hardware aspects of the device every single reason for buying the device would vaporize if it were running WP7.
This unholy alliance will no doubt be cheered by US investors and WP7 fans (both of them) but it'll cost Nokia dearly in every market which they are currently doing well in.
It's sad really, as I'm now feeling limited to SE when it comes to providing phones which are phones first and mobile computers second.
I hope I turn out to be wrong but I can't see it.
tech6 - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
So two players on the very margins of relevancy in this field have joined forces in an attempt to gain traction. I don't think that the sum of this partnership is any greater than the sum of its parts.LostPassword - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
I wouldn't call Nokia a margin player. They're still the largest phone maker in the world. Android may have overtaken them in sales but that's because theres half a dozen different companies pushing it versus one Nokia.micksh - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
Given Nokia's development speed and current workforce reduction, the results of this will appear in late 2012 as the earliest.WP7 may be even less relevant by that time.
Kepe - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
There's a lot more info on this in Finnish media. I'll try and translate some of the main points:Nokia's Windows Phone products will have (some) unique software and hardware solutions. They say Nokia's WP products will be based on "the next generation WP operating system", but it is not known if this means WP7 or something that is yet to come. They will, however, be clearly different products than the products of other WP manufacturers.
MeeGo will not be dropped completely, but it will be made in to an open source experimental OS that concentrates on new kinds of devices and user experiences. A MeeGo product should be released later this year, but it will not be the rumoured N9 with a QWERTY keyboard. MeeGo 1.2 should be released in April and 1.3 in October.
Symbian will be used on cheaper consumer models, and it will slowly be killed off completely. There are a couple of slides showing the future development of the OSes and a slide showing the new R&D structure (the site is Finnish but the slides are in English):
http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/taskumuro/nokia-ajaa-s...