Stephen Elop – CEO of Nokia and Steve Ballmer – CEO Microsoft on Friday jointly announced a groundbreaking partnership between their two companies that will lead to the development and creation of a third Ecosystem in the mobile industry. The news was received with mixed reactions both from the public as well as from the world markets, seeing Nokia’s shares taking a strong dip after the announcement.
Last night, Stephen took to the ‘stage’ once again, this time at a special press briefing held in Barcelona, Spain at the start of this years Mobile World Congress, to once again talk about the new partnership announced on Friday. The briefing served as a platform to clarify the battle waged against Android and how important it is to bring in a 3rd ecosystem to prevent Android and Apple from becoming the dominant players in the Mobile Industry, as well as clarify any misconceptions from Friday’s announcement. (If you missed it, you can click here to see the recorded video here).
Let’s take a look at last nights press briefing for more details:
In the second half of the briefing the future of its current operating systems, Symbian and Meego were discussed by Jo Harlow who will lead Nokia’s newly-created Smart Devices division. This new partnership with Microsoft led many to believe that Symbian was going to be abandoned, but Jo last night stressed the company’s commitment to Symbian for the next few years. Even with it’s transition towards the Windows Phone, it will continue to invest in Symbian, including releasing new devices that incorporate more advanced, gigahertz-plus’ processors for greater processing capability and better graphics, and sleeker user interface software. The continued reason for this is that Nokia Windows devices will not be available for a long while yet, although there was a hint that there might be a Nokia Windows device by the end of this year. Two Concept Prototype pictures of the new devices were also shown during the briefing, here they are:
What about MeeGo, well to be honest that leaves me a little unclear as to it’s future. There was mention that Nokia will ship it’s first MeeGo device later this year but further than that, Stephen did not make any commitment, ‘We are still working on the next steps and consulting with Intel’ he said. He does mention that there will be some significant investment in technologies that would deliver the “next disruption” in the mobile market and that MeeGo would likely be part of this investment. Let’s stop here for now and look at part two of the briefing.
Part two, VP of Smartphones Jo Harlow explains the transition from the Symbian to WidowsPhone platform:
Shortly afterwards, there was a short there was a short Q&A with the press where Stephen Elop and Jo Harlow took questions from the attending press:
Continuation of the Q&A:
This all said, I am led to believe that Nokia’s decision to back Microsoft and its emerging Windows Phone OS, is the best taken to date – and that this new Ecosystem will definitely become a strong contender against the forces of Apple and Google in today’s Mobile Industry. The planned partnership still remains subject to final negotiations and execution of the definitive agreements by the the two companies, but I am sure that these will be resolved in due course and this plan of action will be carried out, after all it’s a match made in heaven 
What are your thoughts?
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