Nokia and Windows Phone 7 marriage rumor circulating again

Stephen Elop's move to become the CEO of Nokia after heading Microsoft's Office division is fueling speculations about WP7 heading to the Finnish devices. The all-important "trusted source" has confirmed that Mr Elop has been given the green light to make spring cleaning at Nokia as he sees fit, including playing around with the possibilities of additional operating systems.

Despite the fact that Symbian^3 has a revamped touch UI, and MeeGo will be a completely modern mobile OS, Nokia is still lagging in the software department. Seeing how thoroughly the company shook up its management cohorts, it is only likely that a big announcement will soon follow regarding the future strategy. MeeGo for its high-end devices, and Symbian^4 for the rest was Anssi Vanjoki's vision for the future of Nokia, but he is stepping down in a few months, because he wasn't promoted to the CEO position, as he said the other day.

MeeGo is in a final phase of development, and there is even a flagship Nokia N9 tested with it, as various leaks confirmed. Nothing is being heard on the Symbian^4 front, though, and WP7 might be a good alternative in the meantime. A lot of Microsoft's services are overlapping with the Ovi ecosystem, but two companies like Nokia and Microsoft can quickly overcome those differences and merge or complement the two successfully.

Or, for that matter, Microsoft could just outright buy Nokia at the current depressed share price, and have the hardware to back its software. Microsoft's cash and cash equivalents barely cover the market cap of Nokia when we last checked, though, and it still has to pay a premium, so a merger or an alliance is much more likely. Loyal Nokia fans might go elsewhere with such a move, though.

Microsoft will be getting more out of it than Nokia, but it will be a real game changer if something along those lines is announced in a few months. The only alliance we see that could prevent Apple, and especially Google, from cannibalizing the mobile operating systems market. Plus, Nokia will get a snappy minimalistic mobile OS, and the much needed exposure to the Silicon Valley, where much of the mobile and cloud services revolution is coming from these days. Our poor heads will explode from imagining the possibilities such an alliance can bring. But for now, let's wait and see how Nokia N8 fares on AT&T, as sources say its availability there can be announced in as little as two weeks at CTIA.

Nokia N8 Specifications | Hands-on

source: VentureBeat