In what may seem a surprise move to some folks, Nokia and Microsoft have today announced that they will combine their respective strengths and approach the mobile market together.

About time. Nokia has been stumbling around in the dark for a while now, as they watched their competitors like Apple and Google steal all the lime light. Apple manufactures their own hardware, and develops their own software. This makes for fantastic devices that work really well. The success of the iPhone and the iPad can testify to this. Google launched Android and made it open to handset manufacturers. Samsung and HTC have been two of the biggest users of Android, each releasing numerous handsets in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Microsoft built Windows Phone 7 (gratefully, not on the smoking charred ruins of Windows Mobile 6.5, rather, from scratch), but hasn’t seen the same adoption by handset manufacturers that Android has seen. So essentially Microsoft has the software but no momentum.

Nokia have the lions share of the global market for feature phones. Running either their own proprietary software, or running Symbian, or Maemo, or Meego, or whatever, on the more sophisticated devices. But in a Smartphone world, the feature phone isn’t making waves. Nokia have tried to make a few smart phones, but each time they are met with very little interest in the market. Which is understandable when they’re trying to stand up to their Android and iPhone rivals, without a decent OS.

So Nokia then has momentum, but no good software to steer into the smartphone market, with.
The Nokia-Microsoft partnership makes perfect sense then. In fact, it becomes blindingly obvious. Nokia manufacture the devices (which they’re VERY good at, actually), and leverage the juggernaut momentum they enjoy, and Microsoft provide the (very capable) software, and the hordes of developers with Microsoft DevTools experience, as well as most of the online services such as App stores, media content etc etc. Boom. Instant giant smartphone player.

Oh, and there is a company called RIM that makes something called a Blackberry, but they are losing too much market-share to be relevant here…