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Its official now, Nokia is partnering with Microsoft to make Windows Phone 7 its “principal smart phone strategy”, and will together “combine assets and develop innovative mobile products on an unprecedented scale.”
A strongly worded open letter written by both Elop and Ballmer, as well as a press release from the companies, outlined the strategic alliance’s intent, and added that Microsoft services and products like Bing, Xbox Live, and Office, as well as Nokia offerings like Ovi Maps, will also be part of “board strategic partnership”.
Nokia would help drive the future of Windows Phone, innovating on top of the platform, especially in areas such as imaging and language support, as well as maps. Other collaborations between the two include Bing for Nokia search services, Microsoft adCenter Nokia’s advertisement services, and Ovi Maps for Microsoft mapping services. Nokia and Microsoft will apparently collaborate on joint marketing initiatives as well, sharing a development roadmap. While this doesn’t exactly signal the end of MeeGo or even Symbian, Nokia has stressed the continued importance of Qt as the unified development framework for these two platforms, and Microsoft’s free Windows Phone Developer Tools will be used for upcoming Nokia Windows Phone devices. Microsoft has also offered “guidance” to developers interested in porting their apps for WP&, making evident no Qt tie-in to WP7 APIs. The integration, or dissolution, of the Ovi Store into Microsoft Marketplace might just hold some interesting opportunities for developers, effects we are bound to start seeing soon.
A letter to Nokia app developers assured them of a continued future for the Qt-based platforms, with news of plans to sell “around 150 million more Symbian devices”, and of the first MeeGo-related open source device shipping later this year.
While the world is wondering how everything will pan out, of immediate consequence – Intel is not happy, and nor are the Qt developers.