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Well, that's that. Symbian and MeeGo are on the artefact out, newborn partners Nokia and Microsoft addicted early Friday, and Windows Phone is in.

The widely expected news came meet a some life after articulate leaked of an internal Nokia note from CEO author Elop, who compared Nokia's precarious sit atop the wireless concern to that of a Negro standing on a "burning platform," with binary explosionsâ€"the large coming from much runaway smartphone success as Apple's iPhone and Google's Android OSâ€"erupting every around him. The exclusive artefact to survive, proclaimed Elop in the leaked memo, would be to move into the "freezing water" below.

The chilling water, as it turns out, module be Microsoft's budding Windows Phone platform. (Kind of a back-handed compliment, but heyâ€"so it goes.)

Details on the new, "broad strategic partnership" are ease preliminary, Nokia said in an authorised journal post Friday, but make no mistakeâ€"we're not meet talking a minimal handshake and picture opp here.

Coinciding with the care is a major management shakeup, with Nokia poised to divide itself into two set businesses. The first: "Smart Devices," tasked with cranking discover a "winning Windows Phone portfolio" and direction the soon-to-be-phased-out Symbian and MeeGo platforms. (Wait, MeeGo's already on the artefact out? Hold onâ€"we'll intend to that in a moment.)

The ordinal business, titled "Mobile Devices," module be focused on Nokia's (still massive) Series 40 sectionalization of low-cost handsets, with Nokia hunting to enter the "next billion" would-be ambulatory users.

So, what does every this mean from a gadget perspective?

Well, you crapper pretty much touching Symbianâ€"a once-great smartphone papers that's fallen artefact behindhand the timesâ€"goodbye. While Nokia ease plans on selling 150 meg more Symbian phones "in the eld to come," the newborn plan is to "retain" but "transition" Nokia's 200 meg Symbian users to its newborn "primary" smartphone platform, Windows Phone.

And as for MeeGo, Nokia's long-awaited, next-generation ambulatory OS, wait digit MeeGo-based handset (the first, by the way) this year. That said, MeeGo is today destined to become an "open-source, ambulatory operative system project" focused on "longer-term mart exploration of next-generation devices, platforms, and individual experience."

Translation: the prototypal MeeGo smartphone, if and when it arrives, module probably be the last.

Meanwhile, Microsoft says it module look to Nokia to "help intend the forthcoming of Windows Phone," bringing much features as top-notch optics and Nokia Maps to the table, patch Microsoft's Bing module become Nokia's see engine of choice. (What most tablets, you ask? Good questionâ€"neither Nokia nor Microsoft ever mention the "t" articulate in their respective advise releases.)

Nokia also trumpeted Windows Phone features like springy tiles, dripless Xbox and Office integration, and the Zune media hub as reasons to "get excited" most the newborn partnership.

The Nokia-Microsoft care had been rumored for months, but reflection grew to a feverishness movement in past life following the leak of Elop's exceptional internal memo.

Another doable relation for Nokia was Googleâ€"and indeed, Nokia's Elop was reportedly in talks with Google CEO Eric solon most a possibleness deal. In the end, though, Elop decided (according to CNET) that Nokia "would hit difficulties differentiating within that ecosystem," and that every the "value" would hit been "moving to Google."

In other words: with Microsoft's nascent Windows Phone OS, Nokia gets to be a big seek in a diminutive pond, kinda than a meet digit of some minnows in a ontogeny seafaring of Android phones.

At the same time, Microsoft today has digit of the maximal sound makers in the concern nearly exclusively devoted to Windows Mobileâ€"and Microsoft sure needs the help if it's going to give Apple and Google a separate for their smartphone money.

So, what do you think: did Nokia garner the correct relation in wireless crime? And what most the individual of a Nokia-designed Windows Phone? Fire absent below.

â€" Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News.

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