Nokia: Symbian to 'help Microsoft go downscale'

Nokia's adoption of Windows Phone 7 as its primary smartphone platform will work in the interests of application developers, mobile operators, and content publishers, CEO Stephen Elop said today.

A couple of hours after Nokia announced its Microsoft tie-in at Nokia's Capital Markets Day in London, Elop said Windows Phone 7 developers would particularly benefit from the deal, which will see Nokia abandon its historical focus on Symbian and drop the idea of basing high-end phones on MeeGo. Analysts said the announcement confirms Symbian is no longer worth developers' attention at all.

"This is good for developers and publishers. They can take the skills they already have for Windows and Windows-related platforms and apply them to this [new ecosystem]. It gives them access to Nokia's global scale," he said.

Elop explained that Nokia's Symbian expertise will be used to "help Microsoft go downscale" and address a wider market around the world.

"That leaves open the possibility that [Symbian] will continue as a super-feature-phone platform," Ian Fogg, a Forrester analyst, told ZDNet UK.

Read more of "Nokia-Microsoft deal 'good' for developers and operators" at ZDNet UK.