Nokia, Microsoft Join Forces on Smart Phones with Window Phone 7

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Nokia’s Stephen Elop is in a hurry to justify his decision to ditch the company’s smart-phone software in favor of Microsoft’s OS.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop: We made a decision between Symbian Amigo, Android, or Windows Phone. Elop says Nokia believes Windows Phone offers the best chance to give best experience to the ultimate end consumer and deliver the bet results for our shareholders and employees.

Nokia’s market share has dropped from 40% to 30% last year.

Downside for Microsoft? Other phone makers might be less inclines to use the Windows Phone 7 OS.

Windows Phone 7 is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform. It is aimed at the consumer market instead of the enterprise market like its predecessor. It launched in Europe, Singapore and Australia on October 21, 2010, and in the US and Canada on November 8, 2010, Mexico on November 24, 2010, with Asia to follow in 2011. With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft offers a new user interface with its design language named Metro, integrates the operating system with 3rd party and other Microsoft services, and plans to strictly control which hardware it runs on.

Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 7 one year ago on February 15, 2010, at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona and revealed additional details at MIX 2010 on March 15, 2010. The final SDK was made available on September 16, 2010.

Metro is all about a differentiated UI
Metro is an internal code name for a typography-based design language created by Microsoft. Metro was created as a product of Microsoft’s user interface design (UI) work on Zune and Windows Media Center, for use in their mobile operating system Windows Phone 7. A specially made version of Microsoft’s Segoe font family, Segoe WP, is used as the main font.

Microsoft’s design team says that the Metro UI is based on signs on the Metro rapid transit system in King County, Washington. Metro places a large focus on typography and features large text that catches the eye and runs off the page. Microsoft says that Metro is designed to be “sleek, quick, modern” and a “refresh” from the icon-based interfaces of Android and iOS.