Analysis and Guesses: Nokia and Microsoft form partnership

"Nokia has joined forces with Microsoft in an attempt to regain ground lost to the iPhone and Android-based devices.

"The deal will see Nokia use the Windows phone operating system for its smartphones, the company said.

"It means that Nokia's existing operating systems will be sidelined."

BBC News - Nokia and Microsoft form partnership

It actually very hard to be at all positive about this news. Actually given the current configuration of forces and changes in the mobile world it looks like 2 Web 3.0 also rans who used to be dominate in their sectors are making a utterly defensive pack.

Nokia has been pushed by Apple and phones running Google's Android OS in to the low end of the smartphone industry. It nows seems only a matter of time before they lose their dominate position in phones. Recently a leaked memo from their new CEO Elop spoke of a platform that was burning rather than on fire.

Microsoft Windows 7 has been an utter bomb, perhaps even worse than the earlier versions of Windows Mobile which, though terrible, benefited from more limited alternatives. Windows Mobile 7 on Nokia may make a play for the cheap smartphone market.

I can certainly see this being attractive to a lot of business who want to move their staff to smartphones. Nokia is a popular platform for cost conscious enterprises and no one has ever gotten fired for going with Microsoft (yet).

But this will be a commodity niche in a much larger market. Only a small percentage of phones will be given to people by work.

There is also a possibility that a Windows 7 Nokia phone could become the cheap smartphone for younger and poorer buyers, especially buyers in the developing world.