Nokia to announce Microsoft deal, denies ditching Symbian

Nokia is denying reports claiming the company plans to ditch its Symbian software on smartphones in favour of its open source Maemo OS, but it will announce a new Microsoft partnership tomorrow.

The German edition of the Financial Times has reported that undisclosed Nokia sources claim “Symbian is much too cumbersome to keep up with modern operating systems. We have to react”

TechCrunch asserts that Nokia doesn’t trust its Symbian OS anymore and plans to move its new smartphones to the open source Maemo OS it uses in its internet tablets.

While several other news sources and bloggers have picked up on the story, tech writer Om Malik has refuted it (for now), writing that he contacted a Nokia spokesperson who said “We absolutely remain committed to Symbian and S60. Symbian remains our choice for smartphones and we’ll continue to see enhancements that further the value and experiences on this platform.”

“However, recognizing that the value we bring to the consumer is increasingly represented through software, there is logically not just one software environment that fits all consumer and market needs,” the spokesperson said. “In addition, as we’ve stated before, we also continue to explore opportunities around a new class of devices that we see as the next segment of high performance mobile devices. Maemo is very much part of that thinking but of course there’s nothing new to announce in this regard.”

Meanwhile Nokia is set to announce a deal with Microsoft tomorrow morning (NZ time) that looks set to bring the mobile version of Microsoft Office 2010 to Nokia's smartphones.

Microsoft has previously said that it plans to offer browser-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote with its upcoming version of Office that will work in Firefox and Safari as well as Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Under the Nokia / Microsoft alliance, the upcoming Office 2010 might be ported to Nokia's Symbian S60 smartphone platform, reports ComputerWorld NZ.

“Or, less likely, mobile Office 2010 might be set to run on the Maemo mobile Linux operating system that Nokia also supports.”

Nokia has also denied reports that it will adopt Google's Android OS, but with the amount of sustained criticism of the ageing Symbian OS, combined with the quantity of rumours flying of its move to at least some form of open source OS, it seems likely the company will pull something out of its hat at the upcoming Nokia World Conference in September.