Microsoft has revealed that it is in discussions with Nokia to have the manufacturer start offering devices running Windows Mobile. The announcement came from John Starkweather, Microsoft’s mobile communications business international marketing director. According ot Starkweather, “They obviously have significant investments in Symbian but there are a lot of places where we have significant synergies and we would love to see the day where those synergies would extend completely with Windows Mobile.”
Currently, Nokia uses the Symbian operating system almost exclusively in its devices but does use some Microsoft software. For example, it uses ActiveSync to let devices connect to Microsoft Exchange.
Microsoft is looking to grow the Windows Mobile marketshare from its current 6 percent. Partnering with Nokia which owns 40 percent of the handset market would certainly help Microsoft grow its operating system marketshare.
While there have been talks, there is no guarantee that Nokia will agree to develop a Windows Mobile device. I think that Microsoft would have to offer a pretty sweet deal, especially given its recent acquisition of Trolltech.