Microsoft nokia doomed

Google doesn't really do partnerships at all. Then there's the American market, where Nokia is particularly weak and Microsoft is relatively strong, and vice versa.

Elop said: "It gives them a faster path to global markets. It will give us a faster path to the US market. On paper, then, Nokia and Microsoft look like a good fit.

Nokia gets a preferential and presumably profitable deal for an advanced operating system, plus co-operation that it could never have got from Google. Whether it will work or not remains to be seen, because as Elop said: "no one can override the consumer. But even if the project fails, Nokia deserves some credit for its courage. As Elop said: "Google was a valid option but that felt a little bit too much like giving up and not enough like fighting back.

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Best keyboard Because you deserve better. Best Apple iPad deals available right now: January Simply check the numbers. Again and again, we were told Microsoft was dead or would be by now. Free or dead are its only options.

Windows Phone sells far less than iPhone, therefore Windows Phone dead. Therefore Microsoft dead. It gets worse. Microsoft must abandon hardware. It means that developers are unwilling to invest resources into creating applications for Windows-based phones, which in turn results in a fallow app ecosystem for the devices.

For example, if you're an Android user considering switching to a Nokia Lumia but find that you can't get the apps you already know and love, why would you switch? After all, you don't judge phones by call quality anymore.

Now it's all about what you do online. Surely Microsoft knows all this, yet they pursued the Nokia deal anyway. Well, Microsoft has already discussed a number of reasons for the purchase, like the ability to make more money per handset, less redundant marketing efforts and access to the source code for Nokia's mapping software -- in a word, synergy. But there's a much bigger, more fundamental factor at work here: Microsoft desperately needs to be successful in the mobile space.

The company has tried again and again over the last 15 years to have an impact in mobile -- from the tablet-optimized version of Windows XP to SPOT watches to Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile phones -- and has never gotten much traction.

Meanwhile, desktop computers are in decline and will never again experience the growth the fueled the Microsoft of the 90s. Mobile computing is going to define the next 20 years as surely as Windows and Office defined the last Any company that's predominantly a desktop computing business in might as well be selling answering machines and 8-tracks.