By Emeka Aginam
While the battle for mobile ecosystems intensifies, the Chief  Executive Officer, CEO of Nokia  Stephen Elop at the ongoing Mobile World Congress holding in Barcelona, Spain said that Windows 7 phones remain the best choice for operators as a result of its friendly platform  available in the IT market.

Heikki Norta, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, Corporate Development of Nokia Corporation and Mark Durrant, Director, Communications Nokia Corporation during an intercation with newsmen at the ongoing MWC in Barcelona, Spain. Photo By Emeka Aginam

For the Microsoft CEO,  Steve Ballmer during his congress  positioned   Windows Phone 7  operating system as  the best choice for mobile operators around the world, adding that the new alliance would benefit the two parties.
He said with optimism that   Microsoft was committed  to ensure that  mobile operators can add value over and above connectivity, distribution and customer service
Today we are working hard and we work successfully with OEM partners like Samsung, LG, Dell, HTC – who we have worked with now for about 14 years – and many others to deliver incredible experiences, he said.
It would be recalled that  that have been  comments from recent reports that a number of tier-one operators have expressed concern regarding   the increasing strength of Apple and Google in the mobile ecosystem.
But reacting to this, the CEO of Nokia,  Elop noted that the alliance  between Nokia and  Microsoft  was a good news in the mobile ecosystem  as it will go a long way in creating an  entirely different situation for the  operators to offer unlimited  choice to the  consumers
“Nokia has had a long-standing relationship with operators all over the world. We understand what it means to be the most friendly partner for operators.” Elop said.
With the battle in the mobile ecosystem shaping the future of smart phone market, he said that Nokia and Microsoft will win the battle.
For one thing, the relationship between Nokia and Microsoft understandably dominated much of the event, at the ongoing MWC.

However, Nokia  strategic partnership with Microsoft  is to build a global mobile ecosystem based on highly complementary assets.

The Nokia-Microsoft ecosystem targets to deliver differentiated and innovative products and have unrivalled scale, product breadth, geographical reach, and brand identity. With Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform, Nokia would help drive the future of the platform by leveraging its expertise on hardware optimization, software customization, language support and scale.

Nokia and Microsoft would also combine services assets to drive innovation. Nokia Maps, for example, would be at the heart of key Microsoft assets like Bing and AdCenter, and Nokia’s application and content store would be integrated into Microsoft Marketplace.

Under the proposed partnership, Microsoft would provide developer tools, making it easier for application developers to leverage Nokia’s global scale.

With Nokia’s planned move to Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform, Symbian becomes a franchise platform, leveraging previous investments to harvest additional value.

This strategy recognizes the opportunity to retain and transition the installed base of 200 million Symbian owners. Nokia expects to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the years to come.

Under the new strategy, MeeGo becomes an open-source, mobile operating system project.

MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences. Nokia still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product later this year.