Nokia Adopts Windows Phone 7 OS

Nokia will adopt Microsoft’s Windows Phone as its main smartphone strategy, the company stated today, after days of speculation on what it would do to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android.

The companies will also partner on mobile ads- Nokia will use Microsoft adCenter in mobile devices and on mapping- where Nokia Maps will become part of Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Nokia’s application and content store will be integrated into Microsoft’s Marketplace.

Before today’s announcement, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop had stated that Nokia needed to “decide how we either build, catalyze or join an ecosystem” to change its fortunes. In the end it decided to partner with Microsoft and join the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem.

Nokia will contribute its hardware design and language support to the partnership, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies, the companies said in an open letter from Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. R ead More……..

Google Dethrones Symbian From Smartphones Top Spot

Google’s Android dethroned Nokia’s Symbian as the global leader in smartphone operating systems in the last quarter of 2010, ending a reign that began with the birth of the industry approximately ten years ago.

The changing of the guard reflects just how quickly Google, which offers its software to phone makers for free, has risen to the top of the smartphone market ahead of Apple’s rapid ascension. Google and Apple have revolutionized the smartphone market in recent years, sending Nokia scrambling.

In the fourth quarter, phonemakers sold 32.9 million Android-equipped phones globally, roughly seven times more than the year-earlier quarter, compared with Symbian’s sales of 31 million, according to Research firm Canalys.

The numbers also highlight Google’s success in battling Apple, whose shipments of its popular iPhone increased to 16.2 million from 8.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Unlike Apple or Nokia, Google does not make its own phone hardware but instead offers its Android operating system free to other phone makers who can customize it to suit their devices.

As a result, Android has become the standard software for many phone makers. U.S. phone maker Motorola Inc has even managed to stage a comeback of sorts by focusing solely on Android after years of heavy market share losses….. Read More

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