My advice to Nokia - run as fast as you can! Those who make “deals” with Microsoft always end up losing.
This advice was worth millions to Nokia, but they won’t take it.
Nokia is desperate to get a modern mobile OS in their phones to regain their former glory, and Microsoft is desperate to get a vehicle for the mass adoption of the very late-to-the-party Windows Phone 7. It’s a match made in heaven.
They could have scored nicely by porting the
Android OS/VM on top of their Symbian OS.
The entire line could make the leap to Android.
MS means scrapping Symbian entirely.
Nokia should sell their new Windows Phone 7-based cellphones as “pure” devices (e.g., no additional software other than Windows Phone 7), essentially the same experience as what you get with the Google Nexus One and Nexus S phones. That way, updates can be “pushed out” to these phones easily.