Nokia on verge of deal with Microsoft for Windows Phone 7

Fierce Wireless ^ | 02/10/2011 | Phil Goldstein

[SeekAndFind]

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) CEO Stephen Elop appears poised to announce an alliance with his former employer, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), to put Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform on Nokia phones, according to multiple reports. Elop reportedly will formally unveil the company's new strategy at an investor conference in London Friday.

The reports--in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter--said Elop approached Microsoft and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) about an alliance. However, according to BusinessWeek, the talks with Google to put Android on Nokia phones likely won't result in a deal.

Representatives from all of the companies involved declined to comment, according to the Journal.

In an internal memo sent to employees last week that was leaked on the Web, Elop depicted the company as "standing on a burning platform," beset on all sides by smartphone competitors. He urged a radical change of course.

In an interview with AllThingsD, which was conducted before the memo went public, Elop discussed his thoughts on smartphones and Nokia's smartphone strategy. He said Nokia's main goal would be to pick a smartphone ecosystem that would provide an opportunity for differentiation and scale, and would appeal to developers, carriers and customers.

He also said that Nokia needs to crack the U.S. market, where the world's largest handset maker has long foundered. "We need to be in the United States in one way, shape or form," Elop said. "We have to have a viable way to reopen doors."

[FroggyTheGremlim]

My advice to Nokia - run as fast as you can! Those who make “deals” with Microsoft always end up losing.

This advice was worth millions to Nokia, but they won’t take it.

[antiRepublicrat]

Nokia is desperate to get a modern mobile OS in their phones to regain their former glory, and Microsoft is desperate to get a vehicle for the mass adoption of the very late-to-the-party Windows Phone 7. It’s a match made in heaven.

[Myrddin]

They could have scored nicely by porting the
Android OS/VM on top of their Symbian OS.
The entire line could make the leap to Android.
MS means scrapping Symbian entirely.

[RayChuang88]

Nokia should sell their new Windows Phone 7-based cellphones as “pure” devices (e.g., no additional software other than Windows Phone 7), essentially the same experience as what you get with the Google Nexus One and Nexus S phones. That way, updates can be “pushed out” to these phones easily.

[SmokingJoe]

“This advice was worth millions to Nokia, but they won’t take it.”

Thank God they are not stupid enough t take your advise. Nokia/Symbian has been losing market share in smart-phones for years. They need an excellent, modern smart-phone operating system. Windows Phone 7 is that operating system (Samsung, Motorola, HTC etc are already too strongly entrenched in the Android space). Your advise will end up costing Nokia billions of dollars in eventual losses. With Win Phone 7, Nokia gets in at the beginning with everyone else. Seems like a very good deal to me.