Nokia and Microsoft will hold a joint media event on 5 September, in New York, where they are expected to unveil the first Nokia Windows Phone 8 handsets.
While Nokia has not revealed any details about the event as yet, the invitation resembles the tiled look of Windows Phone, and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is said to have publicly stated the company would soon unveil its latest smartphone offering.
The September event is scheduled for only a week before Apple is rumoured to be revealing the highly-anticipated next-generation iPhone. The future success of the Nokia-Microsoft partnership will heavily depend on whether the next Windows-based phone can pose a significant challenge to the dominance of Samsung and Apple in the smartphone space.
According to Reuters, on Wednesday, Elop told the press that he is sticking to his strategy of using Microsoft software, despite the limited success of Windows phones so far.
The latest sales figures from Gartner show Nokia is continuing to see a decline in its market share in the face of increased competition. Nokia phone sales declined 14.8% in the second quarter.
Test drive
Windows 8 has been hailed as a major step for Microsoft as it completely revamps its traditional operating system design and user interface. The new OS is being designed to create a cohesive user experience across all devices.
Windows 8 is officially set to be released on 26 October, but Microsoft announced on Wednesday the public availability of the final RTM (release to manufacturing) version of the OS for developers and subscribers to Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet services.
Microsoft is also making a 90-day evaluation version of Windows 8 Enterprise available - intended for use by developers, but available to anyone wanting to take the RTM release for a test drive. The evaluation version will, however, not be upgradable to a non-evaluation version.
So far, reports suggest the final version of Windows 8 RTM is not significantly different from the last public preview release. The most obvious changes are the addition of new backgrounds for the start screen, new apps in the Marketplace and the renaming of Windows Explorer to “File Explorer”.
In the run up to its release, Windows 8 has received some mixed reviews from industry commentators. Gartner research director Gunnar Berger says while there are a lot of good things about the new OS for touch devices, the story changes for desktops.
“I think the decision to move to Windows 8 was a solid business decision to get into the tablet market. I even praised the OS when used from a tablet, because it's so much more than just a tablet OS, its Windows. Unfortunately, my area of expertise is enterprise desktops, and those desktops have a keyboard and a mouse; and as much as this doesn't make any sense, it seems to me that Microsoft forgot about this when they designed Windows 8.
“Windows 8 is a risky move by Microsoft to blend two markets, the desktop market and the tablet market. On the tablet use case I think they succeed, it's the desktop side that gives me pause.”
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