Those endless photos of Nokia and Microsoft execs shaking hands and dishing out the complaints were just foreplay, it turns out. They’ve announced today that finally, “after 10 weeks of intense collaboration,” the papers are signed and the deal hashed out.
Poking fun at Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer’s now-infamous keynote, Nokia’s news on the partnership spoke of the high-level of apps they’ve seen since news broke in February:
“As new partners, we recognise the importance of having a strong and growing ecosystem. And, that ecosystem is fuelled by our three favourite words. Developers! Developers! Developers! Since announcing our intention to partner, the number of Windows Phone apps submitted on a daily basis has almost doubled, further illustrating the level of excitement and interest among the community for Windows Phone.”
While they haven’t revealed any of the handsets that we can expect WP7 to appear on, the Nokia blog released the above photo, saying “bright, bold and beautiful, the Windows Phone Concepts are a first snapshot of what we can expect from the Nokia and Microsoft tie-in. Exciting times ahead!” Meanwhile, tipsters have been pointing at the first two WP7 handsets being called W7 and W8, with the first handset having an 8MP camera, and the W8 resembling the Nokia N8. Well, it wouldn’t be like Nokia to delve too far out of their comfort zone now, would it? [Nokia Conversations and NSeries Blog via All Things D via WSJ]