So let’s see now. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is the former head of Microsoft’s Business Division, a position he held until September of last year. In passing, he was also CEO of Macromedia before Adobe acquired the company. In a recent revealing memo, Elop admitted that Nokia’s mobile platform is collapsing around them.

True, Nokia is still the number one maker of mobile handsets, including smartphones, but many of their most successful products are low-end models, and, with Apple nipping at its heels, Nokia has suffered. Profits are declining despite rising sales because they are weighted in the wrong direction.

The arrival of the iPhone turned the mobile phone market upside down. Before Apple got into the game, such companies as Nokia, with its huge worldwide sales, Research in Motion, courtesy of the BlackBerry, and, of course the Windows Mobile platform, all did pretty well. The Android OS was just something Google acquired and were in the process of developing.

So consider Nokia’s status, as a fading giant in need of some help fast. So rather than develop their own mobile platform, the better to compete with the iPhone and Android, Elop went to his former bosses at Microsoft, another fading giant that could use a little help. Together, they struck up a deal that would involve the sharing of technologies, and , of course, moving to Windows Mobile 7 as the main OS for Nokia’s smartphones. Was this a match made in heaven?

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This article was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2011 at 12:00 AM and is filed under News and tagged with: Adobe, Android, BlackBerry, computing, Google, Iphone, Macromedia, Microsoft, Mobile operating system, Nokia, Research In Motion, smartphones, Stephen Elop, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7.