Nokia and Microsoft Team Up in Smartphone Battle

[MacRumors]

Making official what has been widely expected for days, Nokia and Microsoft have announced that the two companies are teaming up in the smartphone market, with Nokia embracing Windows Phone as its "primary smartphone strategy" while contributing its own expertise to further development of the platform.

While the specific details of the deal are being worked out, here's a quick summary of what we are working towards:

- Nokia will adopt Windows Phone as its primary smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

- Nokia will help drive and define the future of Windows Phone. Nokia will contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

- Nokia and Microsoft will closely collaborate on development, joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.

Nokia has long been the world's smartphone market share leader with its Symbian platform, but the company's dominant lead has been quickly evaporating as iOS and Android have rapidly grown. From the other perspective, Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 platform has been fairly well regarded by reviewers, but has yet to catch on as a latecomer to the increasingly crowded smartphone space.

A purported memo from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop published earlier this week outlined the challenges faced by Nokia in a smartphone market that has shifted from a battle of devices to a battle of "ecosystems", a theme echoed in the public statements made today in support of the partnership with Microsoft.

Article Link: Nokia and Microsoft Team Up in Smartphone Battle

 

[0007776]

Should be interesting to see what they make, I don't like Nokia's current software, but do like some of their hardware. I think they should do well with this, and more competition is always good.

 

[AdeFowler]

Seems a bit desperate after all the work they've put in. They say "it's now a 3 horse race" – obviously didn't get the memo from HP

 

[Stampyhead]

I think this is probably too little too late for both companies getting anywhere in the smartphone market, but only time will tell.

 

[roadbloc]

Lol. Old news. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1094749/

Come on MR. You're as on the ball as a dead seal.

 

[Preclaro_tipo]

Bing, Office, Xbox Live

Mr. Ballmer

brands he is bringing:
Bing
Office
XBox Live

Wow, these just happen to be the last 3 things that I want to do on a mobile phone.

 

[iPhoneCollector]

ok watch nokia fall. their market share will drop and the whole company will go bankrupt.

 

[paduck]

Competition is always good for innovation. Unfortunately for MS, they seem to have forgotten how (although they still make money like nobody's business). Let's hope that Apple doesn't fall into the same trap. Since they were at death's door, three months from bankruptcy once, perhaps hubris will not readily emerge.

 

[foiden]

Well, I'll give him that the Live service isn't a bad idea. Considering that everybody else is trying to do a subset of the same thing on all their devices. The Live service, all together, is both a great community networking and a marketting strategy. It brings like-minded people (who generally buy the same kinds of software) together and helps provide that kind of word of mouth to sell products further (and to provide some form of quality control for the consumers using it).

Live was probably MS best invention, and the world trying to copy it (in some form), kind of proves it. Outside of that, I don't see any real strategy yet.

 

[Stella]

WP7 may succeed only due to the amount of phones that Nokia can sell.

There was an article stating that Europeans carriers didn't want Nokia to go with Android because the smartphone market would be dominated by Apple and Android.

Its a sad day - Nokia moving towards WP7.

 

[Žalgiris]

Anyone else get this feeling of shame while watching that video?

 

[*LTD*]

The blind leading the stupid. Which is which is your call.

 

[jealousguy86]

why in the world is this on a "Mac Rumors" website? who cares?????

 

[petvas]

Actually I think that this is quite big. Nokia has still a big market share and now Microsoft has a chance to increase Windows Phone's market share. On the other hand Nokia benefits from Windows Phone.
Many people love Nokia phones, especially in Europe. I am sure that this was a very good move and we will see Nokia and Microsoft gaining market share in two to three years.

why in the world is this on a "Mac Rumors" website? who cares?????

This is competition for Apple. Don't you care?

 

[retrocool]

right move

This is a good move for Nokia and makes Windows Phone 7 look like it might be a viable platform. Nokia wasn't going to get anywhere by being a me-too android handset maker.

 

[Popeye206]

Microsoft has the most to gain. Nokia has a huge customer base and generally makes good hardware.

However, WM7 is a gamble. It's not been well received so far, but I'm sure it will get better. But, can they bring themselves to the level of the iPhone as far as market perception goes? Only time will tell.

I see it as they both had no choice but to team up.... now they have to do something very "wow" to make it work.

 

[guzhogi]

Hopefully, this will bring forth good competition. I'd like these companies to make each company improve their product. However, I just fear it may be a race to the bottom thing where they just try to make the phones cheaper rather than make them better.

 

[ngenerator]

Didn't watch the video, but just from the screenshot on page one, Ballmer is looking oooooooold.

 

[*LTD*]

WP7 may succeed only due to the amount of phones that Nokia can sell.

There was an article stating that Europeans didn't want Nokia to go with Android because the smartphone market would be dominated by Apple and Android.

Its a sad day - Nokia moving towards WP7.

Europeans? Which Europeans? Euro tech-heads?

The last thing the average European cares about is whether Android or Apple dominate the smartphone market. Europeans have no say in the matter until they decide to buy or not. It's all about Desperate Company 1 and Desperate Company 2 finding each other because their shareholders are probably fed up with the status quo.

 

[can.rules]

Poor Nokia

They should've merged with RIM, instead of latching themselves with mobile-loser MS.

RIM and Nokia would've been good for each other. Instead, MS has nothing to lose on this deal, and Nokia has little to win.

I guess that's what happens when you bring a Microsoftie to head Nokia. He clearly still is more concerned about MS's interests that Nokia's.

 

[blackpond]

why in the world is this on a "Mac Rumors" website?

Are the dots really that hard to connect?

The largest OS in the world has teamed up with the largest mobile phone maker in the world to etch away market share from Apple.

Less confused now?

 

[ehoui]

Elop may want to work with MS, but do the rest of Nokia? He has to depend on the alignment of Nokia engineers to make this work.

In any event, I don't know if I wanted to be relegated to building just hardware platforms unless I really sucked at creating software...

 

[LagunaSol]

And thus Nokia becomes a faceless commodity hardware maker for Microsoft, racing to the bottom in margins while Microsoft controls the platform and rakes in all the dough.

Smart move, Nokia.

 

[DoFoT9]

i am quite disappointed by this - i have been faithful to nokia for the reason that they have done their own thing and not conformed to the iOS like side of things. i refuse to buy an iphone because there is no qwerty keypad - and android is oh so ugly.

no where do i go!?

 

[314631]

Competition is always good for innovation. Unfortunately for MS, they seem to have forgotten how (although they still make money like nobody's business). Let's hope that Apple doesn't fall into the same trap. Since they were at death's door, three months from bankruptcy once, perhaps hubris will not readily emerge.

Make no mistake, this deal ensures Microsoft will be competing with Apple and Google in a very serious way in the mobile space. Nokia is still a very powerful brand internationally and in many markets their devices outsell iOS and Android powered ones by frightening multiples. They definitely want to do better in the US and this deal will help them achieve that.

Having such a powerful brand as Nokia exclusively focus on promoting and growing the Windows Phone platform on its smart phones is phenomenal for Microsoft. Steve Ballmer hasn't enjoyed the best of times as Microsoft CEO, but I believe this deal changes the game in the mobile space.

This is a very significant day for Microsoft. The people at Google and their fandroid fanatics know it. Vic Gundotra's bitter tweet shows how disappointed they are to have lost out on this deal. But Elop was never going to back Android given his Microsoft background.