Nokia and Microsoft Make Smartphone Alliance

pbahra writes "The smart money was right. Nokia has jumped into bed with Microsoft and will produce phones running Windows Phone 7. The cynics would say that, here, we have two lumbering dinosaurs of the technology world clinging to each other hoping that the other gives them a future. Optimists would point to two companies that need each other, both bringing vital components to the alliance. The big winner is Microsoft. Windows Phone 7, while reasonably well received by commentators, has not set the world on fire. An alliance with Nokia gives it access to the world's largest phone maker and its huge mindshare — in many developing nations a mobile phone is known as a Nokia. The biggest loser is MeeGo, the ugly, unloved step-child of operating systems." Nokia wrote to developers, "Qt will continue to be the development framework for Symbian and Nokia will use Symbian for further devices; continuing to develop strategic applications in Qt for Symbian platform and encouraging application developers to do the same."

Comments

Re:"Alliance"?

[Nimloth]

I'm just saying, I've been working in the telecom industry for 10 years and I've never seen a stable and interesting or usable version of PocketPC or Windows Mobile. I was waiting on the first WP7 devices just so I could bash them. In that sense I was very disappointed and I (to my surprise) gave them a good review. So far so good on stability, but the real refreshing thing about WP7 is the ease of use and just the general cleanliness of the interface. I remember hearing Ballmer go on "yeah we know Windows Mobile 6 blew, but wait 'till you see 6.1!", and then "wait 'till you see 6.5!" and I would snicker. This is different though, really shows a change of mindset on MS's part.