Nokia allies Microsoft to avoid oblivion

Embattled Nokia has entered a wide-ranging alliance with Microsoft in a last ditch bid to repel an onslaught from Apple and Google.
In a screeching U-turn, the world's largest handset maker will all but abandon its own underwhelming mobile phone software and use Microsoft's operating system instead.
But the Finnish giant lost a tenth of its value after the far-reaching deal came to light amid concerns that Nokia was giving too much away to its new American partner.
The pact is the most dramatic move yet in an attempt to revive the struggling Nokia by new boss Stephen Elop, who defected from Microsoft in the autumn.
It follows four years of abject humiliation for Nokia since the launch of the iPhone, which has seen Apple snatch the Finnish group's crown as the kingpin of mobile phones.
At the same time, Nokia has been losing out in the mid-tier of the mobile phone market to handsets built using Google's Android platform. And its supremacy in cheap phones is also under threat from low-cost Chinese rivals.
In a sensational email to staff leaked onto the internet this week, Elop likened Nokia's predicament to an oil rigger on a 'burning platform' forced to hurl himself into the icy waters.
The hard-hitting memo claimed Nokia had fallen 'years behind' rivals and risked hurtling into oblivion unless a 'huge effort' was made to transform Nokia.
Yesterday, Elop claimed that it was now a 'three-horse' race in the booming market for smartphones, which are now outselling PCs.
But analysts are sceptical. Unlike Nokia and Microsoft, Google and Apple have developed slick and user-friendly systems, spawning millions of software applications.
Geoff Blaber of technology research group CCS Insight said: 'This is a partnership born out of both parties' fears of marginalisation at the hands of Apple and Google.