Empire Strikes back…Nokia

Apple’s iphone  killed Nokia’s Smart phone market share and Motorola, HTC, Samsung with Google’s Android put the last dagger… Now will Nokia Strike back with Microsoft as Partner?

Nokia and Microsoft will combine assets and jointly develop and market mobile products. Nokia’s Maps product will become a core part of Microsoft’s services, while Microsoft’s development tools will create applications for Nokia Windows phones.

Nokia brings with it, its "tremendous brand,"  and also mobile devices, an application store, and maps.
Microsoft will bring the Windows Phone 7 software, and brands including Office, Xbox Live and Bing.

Nokia will divide into two units: Smart Devices and Mobile Phones.

Nokia will bring out a device this year on MeeGo. MeeGo engineers will then be shifted to work on innovations that can help Nokia leapfrog rivals.

Nokia plans to ship another 150 million phones based on its current smartphone operating system Symbian. However, announcement that "Windows Phone is our primary platform" in effect spells the end of Symbian.

Nokia plans to “substantially reduce” its research and development budget. At 5.9 billion euros ($8.1 billion), Nokia’s corporate R&D spending is more than four times that of Apple’s.

Nokia said  there will be “significant reductions” in Nokia jobs. "There will be substantial reductions in employment in various locations around the world and that too will affect Finland.

Nokia has already  announced 1,800 job cuts in the workforce of more than 120,000.

Nokia had extensive discussions with Google but that there was insufficient opportunity for Nokia to “differentiate” its products from others such as those made by Motorola, HTC or Samsung. There was also, with Google's strength in mapping, little chance for Nokia to get much out of its own strength in maps.

-Cheers
PS: Also Read letter from Nokia CEO to employees....Platform is burning...Instead of pointing to link I will just copy it for future reference and post it as seprate blog...!