Nokia Launches Its First Windows Phone

Finnish based mobile manufacturer, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) announced the launch of five new phones on Wednesday, two of which are based on Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Mobile Operating System.

Nokia announced the Windows based smartphones to present media personnel and investors at Nokia World 2011 conference. The Finnish smartphone maker is aiming to compete against Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone with the launch of the new smartphones. The move is Stephen Elop’s, the Chief Executive Officer’s last bid effort to help Nokia regain its lost market share.

Elop received a lot of criticisms from investors when he decided to shut down the company’s Symbian platform and also cut ties with the MeeGo platform being developed in collaboration with Intel Corp. The stocks of the company have fallen constantly since then.

Alongside the three S40 based low cost handsets, Nokia unveiled a couple of Lumia handsets that run on Windows platform. The Lumia handsets will compete against handset such as Samsung’s Galaxy and Nexus, Motorola’s RAZR Droid and Apple’s iPhone 4s for the next year or so in the high margin markets. Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 were unveiled at the conference.

On these handsets also hinges the future of Microsoft’s mobile platform, which has so far not been effective at competing against Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems. According to survey carried out by Gartner Inc., the Windows based devices held only around 1.6 percent of the market last quarter.

It is uncertain if the Microsoft and Nokia handset partnership will success or not, with both the parties putting in significant resources behind the success of these smartphones. Microsoft is aiming to become the third crucial operating system in the market. Other smartphone manufacturers with their own operating systems are either struggling to gain market share or have discontinued development of their smartphone operating system platform. Blackberry has been losing its market share constantly to Apple and Google and HP in August announced that it is discontinuing development on the WebOS platform.

The reviews of the Lumina 800 have been good with the external design resembling the Meego based N9. However the internals are different in the two devices. Nokia is aiming on the consecutive product cycles to beat other manufacturers.

Elop said that the company is going through a phase of transformation and the company is taking one step at a time. Elop took the stage to unveil the new windows based smartphones along with a host of new services such as Nokia Drive location, exclusive ESPN content deals and other social media applications.

Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.