Nokia announced today that it will adopt Microsoft's Windows Phone as its main strategy for smartphones, embracing Microsoft's developer ecosystem to drive its future smartphone growth. This is a significant announcement that changes the market dynamics dramatically and accelerates the horizontalisation in the mobile software platforms. Google's Android significantly contributed to the horizontalisation and now Nokia's partnership with Microsoft creates another credible choice. We have assessed Microsoft's mobile strategy back in March 2010 and it still holds true. We mentioned this Nokia partnership possibility in that report!

However, several questions remain like how Nokia will monetise its investments in MeeGo, Qt, Symbian, Ovi and Web Runtime and the availability of first Nokia Windows Phones. As for chipset vendors, last week we wrote that Qualcomm could be a prime beneficiary from this deal. We believe Nokia will add Qualcomm, Broadcom, ST-Ericsson, Renesas and Intel to its Windows Phone supplier list. We will know more on these questions as it unfolds today.