On Friday morning, two struggling mobile phone giants announced a partnership to get each company back into the already crowded smartphone market.
Nokia and Microsoft announced that Nokia is set to produce phones with the Windows Phone 7 operating systems.
The partnership is an attempt by both companies to get back in the smartphone ring.
With Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platform dominating the market, Microsoft hopes that a deal with Nokia, a worldwide distributor of smartphones, will allow the Windows Phone 7 to carve out its own place amongst the competition.
For Nokia, the deal also puts them back in the ring for cell phone makers. Once a staple in the pre-smartphone era, Nokia has struggled to compete with Apple, Google, and Research in Motion (BlackBerry phones) since the smartphone boom.
The companies announced that the merger will happen after a two-year transition, with the hopes that the two years will allow for buzz and support to grow for the new phones.
Uncertainty, however, remains in the economic side of the deal.
Nokia stocks tumbled in pre-sales Friday morning, falling almost 10 percent. Nokia’s chief executive Stephen Elop also announced that the move means job cuts and consolidation for the company.
