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Nokia shares tumble after Windows Phone 7 announcement

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 11 Feb 2011 2:08 User comments (6)

Nokia shares tumble after Windows Phone 7 announcement Following Nokia's official announcement that it will be partnering with Microsoft, shares have tumbled, reaching session lows as of writing of down 14.50 percent on 700 percent average volume.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced this morning that Nokia smartphones would now run the Windows Phone 7 operating system, a huge move for Microsoft which instantly gains a worldwide footprint, but a tough admission from Nokia that they have been slow on innovating in the burgeoning smartphone market.

In just 4 years, Nokia's smartphone share has fallen from 51 percent to 27 percent, losing all of its share to Android and Apple. Microsoft was once a leader in that market as well, but has seen its share fall to single digits.

Elop says the partnership will "jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity."



In Windows Phone 7, the Nokia Ovi Store will be merged into the Marketplace and all Nokia smartphones will have Bing as the default search engine. Furthermore, WP7 will add Nokia's NAVTEQ maps.

Says one analyst of the deal:

It’s a clear admission that Nokia’s own platform strategy has faltered. Microsoft is the big winner in this deal, but there are no silver bullets for either company given strength of iPhone and Android.


After Elop's speech 1,000 Nokia employees allegedly walked out of company headquarters in protest of the move. Nokia says the number was a lot less and called the walkout "a mass exercise of vacation time."

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6 user comments

111.2.2011 14:59

LOL I guess people aren't too happy about that idea and don't have much fate in windows phone 7 OS.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 11 Feb 2011 @ 2:59

211.2.2011 21:40

LoL...if only the rest of the market worked so well; Intel's shares didn't drop at all when they bought McAfee; that has to be at least as dumb as building a WinMo7 phone.

311.2.2011 22:54

i could be wrong but the only way these company survive is to make nokia the only hardware for windows, and nokia only use windows OS. my 2 cents.

411.2.2011 23:00

Microsoft already has enough problems without being limited to Nokia's crummy hardware, and Nokia already has enough problems without being limited to Microsoft's crummy OS. Microsoft needs to leech off of HTC and Motorola for enough power to handle the wasteful system, and Nokia needs to leech off of Google so that they have an OS that runs OK on slower hardware.

A Nokia with WinMo7...I can't think of a worse combination...well, maybe a Nokia with iOS.

512.2.2011 13:08

Originally posted by KillerBug:
LoL...if only the rest of the market worked so well; Intel's shares didn't drop at all when they bought McAfee; that has to be at least as dumb as building a WinMo7 phone.
It seems to me Killer that Nokia employees are just as bitter, just walking off the job in some protest. Hmm, doesn't that sound famililar these days? If you don't like something, protest.

613.2.2011 05:22

Nokia bought Qt and improved it a lot. It's used a fair amount in open source software (because it offers the best platform compatibility, and is extremely easy) and has some usage with commercial software.

Maybe this platform-agnosticism development style that Microsoft hates has their developers thinking this way. Honestly, I do not blame them. When you create software, you generally try to create a solution that can be useful in multiple different problems, especially so you do NOT have to rewrite the solution again.

The Windows API (and development system) has no easy way to keep your code clean and create portable, usable code (C standards out of whack, C++ standards same; no Win libraries for other platforms except Xbox). Write-once, run everywhere doesn't even exist across the Windows versions (this is the reason Microsoft made .NET). Windows bugs, incompatibily to C-standard code, and general weirdness to UNIX-based platforms makes for some big headaches.

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