14 DAY TRIAL // Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is reportedly gearing up for the launch of its first Windows Phone 7 device, following the firing of a series of employees who were working on the development of the company's Symbian operating system.
While rumors on this emerged into the wild before, and none of them proved real in the end, it seems that things might have been carved in stone this time.
The news comes from Mobile-review (via Unwired View) which is known as one of the main sources of leaked details on Nokia's plans.
For the time being, nothing was confirmed on the matter, and we'll take this with a grain of salt, but we wouldn't be that surprised in case Nokia does announce officially plans in this direction.
Nokia’s new CEO, Stephen Elop, comes from Microsoft, and he might have had something to do with the tightening of the Nokia-Microsoft collaboration to the point where it would result in the launch of a Nokia device that does not run under Symbian.
Moreover, the rumor was fueled by the recent wave of layoffs at Nokia, which affected the Symbian team as well.
Last month, during the Microsoft TechEd Europe 2010 conference in Berlin, we had the chance to talk with Nokia officials, and they stated loud and clear that Nokia remains committed to Symbian and MeeGo.
However, since the company continues to lose market share on the smartphone market to rival companies which brought to shelves devices based on Android, Windows Phone 7 and other mobile OSes, many are expecting for Nokia to shift its focus.
While releasing handsets running under Windows Phone 7 or Android would make sense, it's rather unlikely that Nokia would indeed make the move in the very near future, especially since it did not release a MeeGo-based smartphone yet.
Currently this is merely a rumor, and should be treated as such. We reached to Nokia for a statement on the matter, and we'll update this article as soon as we receive an answer from them.
Update: As expected, Nokia would not comment on these speculations.Here's what the official response reads: "We have nothing to announce and have a long-standing policy to not comment on rumours or speculation."