Sure, you’ve been reading about this all day, but anyway I would like to explain my thoughts about the Nokia-Microsoft deal.
I think it’s a good deal both for Nokia and Microsoft. It’s pretty good for Microsoft because they need to put their operating system in as many as possible devices out there without doing what Google is doing right now: putting the Android system in almost any kind of device, from low-end to high-end without any interest about hardware, UI modifications by handsets makers, future firmware upgrades, etc. It’s growing without control, and people begin to be upset.
Dealing with a reputable handset maker like Nokia, will enable Microsoft to define (with Nokia being involved, I hope) future devices without flooding the market like Android is doing. They will put emphasize on medium and high-end segment and they will let Symbian do the job on the low-end segment.
Flooding the market with unlimited devices from multiple handset makers is a dangerous thing because the user will be confused about which one to choose and we are now seeing how well Apple is doing it by offering only one device model.
Windows Phone 7 is a pretty good operating system but need to attract more developers and buzz right now to be able to compete with Android or iOS. For the “normal user” Windows Phone 7 is more reliable and easy to use than Android.
It’s important to note that Nokia owns a massive patents portfolio that Microsoft will no doubt to use against Google to try to slow down the flood. They could use them against Apple as well, but I don’t think so. Microsoft and Apple are good friends in so many areas right now and they will try to avoid a patent war against each other.
I think the common enemy is Google :-)
Anyway, we will not see anything happening for the next weeks. We will need to wait several months until the deal made its way to the streets with shiny new Nokia Windows Phones.