The latest fascinating major milestone in the global smart phone sales race is Nokia and Microsoft’s recent announced alliance. Nokia is having to respond to its fast declining market share where it has been losing ground to Android (open source) and Apple (consumer favourite). For reference Q4 2010 shipments by Operating system (OS) were Android 33%, Symbian 31%, Apple 16%, RIM 14%, Windows 3%, Others 3%. (Source Canalys).

It is telling that Nokia chose a non exclusive deal with Microsoft where it has to pay a licence fee to use the Windows OS in preference to Android’s OS which would be free.