"Strategic partnership" between Nokia and Microsoft - Official

[darkewaffle]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=20888

I'm pretty interested. Nokia's got a great rep for hardware and me wanting to wait for some more advanced phones was what kept me from WP7.

Curious, anyone know or even have any predictions how this might influence/accelerate WP7 making it's way to other carriers?

 

[shortylickens]

Well right now in America its difficult to get a Nokia phone through one of the 4 major carriers. Tmobile has always had the most, and currently thats only 3 or 4 models. If Nokia makes one really good WP7 model and puts it on all the carriers, that could seriously change the playing field for them and Microsoft.

 

[shortylickens]

Also, another article.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/live-from-nokias-capital-markets-day/

 

[erwos]

N8 with WP7? Sign me up!

 

[RedRooster]

I've always loved Nokia hardware. This is great news, hoping they have something ready before summer!

 

[Deeko]

I'm still surprised that Nokia would be willing to give up being a platform owner - but I think the end result of this could be some great phones.

I want that E7 with WP7 right meow.

 

[kaerflog]

This is great.
There can easily be 3 major mobile OSes.
We know Apple is keeping iOS to themselves so that only leaves Android for the manufacturers. Win7 can easily succeed as the other OS.

Now my gripe, again......
They really need to do something with the stupid colored squares.
At least making them transparent.
Just for the simple fact that you can see your wallpaper.
We all know wallpapers is the #1 thing when it comes to customizing your phone.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Good Windows Mobile 7 needs the help. I hear they have an innovative interface for the thing, competition is always good.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Too bad for me. I would have loved an Android phone with Nokia quality hardware.

 

[shortylickens]

Too bad for me. I would have loved an Android phone with Nokia quality hardware.

I think a lot of us were pushing for Android but I'm still glad they gave up on their Meego.


Also, Nokia is not dropping Symbian for low end phones so you hardcore fans dont have to cry.

 

[tokie]

Wow, Nokia had over 1500 employees working on Symbian. How on earth is that possible? Did they just take dumps on each other day in and day out or what?

I guess now we understand where those billions in "R&D" went over the years.

 

[thilanliyan]

I'm crying...I'm using a Symbian^3 device right now and I have to say I like it. The UI and browser could use a bit of work but aside from that it is a great OS IMO. I've tried iOS, Android, and even Bada, and the only advantage the first two have are the slightly better UI and the number of apps. I like the great telephony and battery life of my C7.

 

[kaerflog]

I'm not a Symbian user so I would not know but maybe they dumped it because it was never meant to be used for high-end smartphones.
Which of course is why they decided to go for Meego but that was taking tooooo long.

 

[thilanliyan]

In its current state S^3 is not 100% suitable for touch phones. However, I bet if they had called it something else and gave it a better UI it would have fared a lot better.

 

[akugami]

The problem with Symbian has always been that they never able to update the UI. This is perplexing considering how much they spent on Symbian. It will live on in their lower end phones.

I'm not really surprised at the transition to Windows Phone 7. The odd OS out seems to be Meego.

 

[preslove]

I think they're leaving money on the table by not also putting out Android phones. WP7 has a couple things keeping it back. Sync up with hotmail & default search as Bing? D:

 

[Deeko]

WP7 syncs with gmail just as well. And while the search button takes you to the Bing app (obviously), hitting the search button within the browser (at least on my Venue Pro) takes you to Google.

 

[EightySix Four]

I'm pretty happy about the announcement, Nokia hardware is generally great and I <3 my surround. I think WP7 has the same problem as every other MS product though, slow updates. IE would be an immeasurably better browser on a 6 month release cycle, and Android releases major revisions at the same pace that MS releases bug fixes.

 

[zoiks]

This has fail written all over it. We'll see how it goes.
Elop came from Microsoft and has allegiance for that company which is probably why he did what he did.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

I think this is great news. I live in India and the idea of carrier-specific (subsidized) phones never really caught on here. You won't see many operator-locked HTCs/iPhones/Blackberries around but almost everyone (in large markets) would have an unlocked Nokia phone in the $300 to $400 range.

Of course, there is a much bigger market for feature phones in the $100-$200 range (unlocked) and Nokia pretty much owns that market segment. If Nokia/Microsoft can expand their offerings to lower price points, that would be killer.

(Disclaimer: I'm basing this primarily on what I see around me, not by any hard stats so)

Sign me up for an unlocked $300 WP7 smartphone when it's available.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Great news for consumers IMO. Nokia now has a modern OS to put on their already good hardware, and MS gets an exclusive phone manufacturer to differentiate themselves.

That was a problem for Windows Phone 7, they're all basically the same HTC and Samsung phones that you can get with Android.

 

[tdawg]

This is great.
There can easily be 3 major mobile OSes.
We know Apple is keeping iOS to themselves so that only leaves Android for the manufacturers. Win7 can easily succeed as the other OS.

Now my gripe, again......
They really need to do something with the stupid colored squares.
At least making them transparent.
Just for the simple fact that you can see your wallpaper.
We all know wallpapers is the #1 thing when it comes to customizing your phone.

To each his own. I personally love the homescreen layout as all my information is available at a glance. The UI makes me care much less about what wallpaper I have hiding behind it.

 

[LostPassword]

I just hope they don't follow the trend of releasing carrier specific phones. I want a world phone that supports all bands.

 

[zerocool84]

Wow, Nokia had over 1500 employees working on Symbian. How on earth is that possible? Did they just take dumps on each other day in and day out or what?

I guess now we understand where those billions in "R&D" went over the years.

They only way they could have made it competitive is if they went the Windows Phone 7 route and totally redid Symbian.

 

[DivideBYZero]

How on earth is that possible? Did they just take dumps on each other day in and day out or what?

I'm trying to imagine any company where that could happen. Not even in a German Porn production company.