Report: Nokia on verge of deal with Microsoft for Windows Phone 7

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) CEO Stephen Elop appears poised to announce an alliance with his former employer, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), to put Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform on Nokia phones, according to multiple reports. Elop reportedly will formally unveil the company's new strategy at an investor conference in London Friday.

The reports--in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter--said Elop approached Microsoft and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) about an alliance. However, according to BusinessWeek, the talks with Google to put Android on Nokia phones likely won't result in a deal.

Representatives from all of the companies involved declined to comment, according to the Journal.

In an internal memo sent to employees last week that was leaked on the Web, Elop depicted the company as "standing on a burning platform," beset on all sides by smartphone competitors. He urged a radical change of course.

In an interview with AllThingsD, which was conducted before the memo went public, Elop discussed his thoughts on smartphones and Nokia's smartphone strategy. He said Nokia's main goal would be to pick a smartphone ecosystem that would provide an opportunity for differentiation and scale, and would appeal to developers, carriers and customers.

He also said that Nokia needs to crack the U.S. market, where the world's largest handset maker has long foundered. "We need to be in the United States in one way, shape or form," Elop said. "We have to have a viable way to reopen doors."

For more:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this Bloomberg article
- see these two AllThingsD articles

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