14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia's first Windows Phone device won't run under the current flavor of Microsoft's mobile platform, but would be launched with an upgraded operating system, some of the latest reports around the web suggest.
Last week, the Finnish giant announced its intent to move to the Windows Phone mobile OS with its future smartphones, and to kill off current plans on other platforms, such as Symbian and MeeGo.
However, the company did not unveil a specific release date for the first device to be released as the result of this collaboration with Microsoft, but speculation on the matter already started to emerge.
Some of the latest rumors on this suggest that Nokia's first Windows Phone device would be released either sometime in October, or in the months to follow.
The general consensus would be that this handset is set to arrive before the end of the ongoing year, as Nokia said before, but further info on it lacks for the time being.
“We are not giving any guidance on product details, timings, markets, operators at the moment, but we can say we target to deliver significant volume of Nokia Windows Phones in 2012,” Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop reportedly stated when asked about this phone.
Even so, it has been suggested that the device might be released sometime during the fourth quarter of the ongoing year, and that it might actually run under a new flavor of the Windows Phone platform.
This speculation would be in line with previous reports on Microsoft's plans for the mobile OS, which would include the release of a major software update, dubbed 'Mango', sometime in October.
This update might become Windows Phone 7.5, and deliver a nice range of enhancements when compared to what the Windows Phone 7 OS features at the moment (some of these improvements were detailed at MWC 2011).
No official confirmation on the matter emerged for the time being, but the first Nokia Windows Phone is indeed expected to arrive towards the end of the year, and the above scenario might easily prove real.
What should be seen, however, is whether Nokia's phones would run under the same flavor of Windows Phone as devices from other manufacturers.
After all, the two giants announced that this was no usual agreement, and that Nokia would have 'special rights' when it comes to the development and customization of Windows Phone 7.
Most probably, that Windows Phone OS on top of Nokia's smartphones will be specifically crafted platform flavor, similar in many respects with the stock version, but capable of delivering a personalized experience.