Nokia joins forces with Microsoft to beat competition

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, said Friday it was joining forces with US giant Microsoft in a major corporate strategy shake-up that left investors disappointed.

The Finnish phone maker said Microsoft's Windows Phone

The Finnish phone maker said Microsoft's Windows Phone would however serve as its primary smartphone platform in a "broad strategic partnership" destined to regain market share from competitors Apple and Google.

Analysts said the partnership would bring Nokia the benefit of Microsoft's massive resources and experience in cloud computing, essential to then-generation devices, during Nokia could help Microsoft get a better foothold in the portable devices market.

Others just as Espirito Santo Investment Bank pointed out that the Windows' operating system had "failed to gain traction" and that a partnership with Google -- whose successful Android operating system had as well been pegged as an option for Nokia -- would have been a better choice.

The primary smartphone platform

With Microsoft Phone as the primary smartphone platform, Symbian system will become a "franchise platform" as the company attempts to "retain and transition" its 200 million Symbian-powered mobile phone clients, it said in a statement.

Nokia has on the whole not shipped any smartphones with MeeGo though the company said it hoped to have one MeeGo-related product on shop shelves later this year.

Nokia has over the past two years seen increasing competition in the lucrative smartphone sector from Apple's iPhone, Innovation in Motion's Blackberry and by Android-operated phones.

Technology technology firm Gartner said Wednesday Nokia's global market share had tumbled to 28.9 percent in 2010 from 36.4 percent in 2009.