Nokia and Microsoft announced plans this morning for a broad strategic alliance to help grow both companies in the global mobile marketplace (Check out a video from Steve and Steve above). While not all the details of the partnership have been worked out, we know that Nokia will now be focusing on creating Windows Phone 7 handsets.

As part of the partnership, Nokia will “adopt Windows Phone as its primary smartphone strategy,” and have input on the future of the OS by sharing its expertise on hardware design and language support. The partnership is intended to help bring Windows Phone 7 to the market in a variety of new geographic locations, at a variety of different price points.

The mobile market is shifting dramatically towards smartphones. The Microsoft/Nokia partnership will help Microsoft stay in the smartphone game, by having a global leader in space help them get there. Having input on the development of the OS is huge, and will allow Nokia to develop phones specifically made to work with Windows, with Windows optimized to work on its phones.

The partnership brings Microsoft’s Bing search to all Nokia devices, and Nokia Maps will now be at the core of Microsoft’s mapping service. Nokia’s current content and application store will also be integrated into the Microsoft Marketplace, giving customers access to content from both locations at once. Microsoft also has control over things like Microsoft Office, and XBOX Live, both of which are currently a part of Windows Phone 7.

What do you think about the Microsoft/Nokia partnership? Is it a good move for both companies, or is one going to ultimately drag the other down?

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Tags Featured, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Nokia, Windows Phone 7, XBox, Xbox Live