Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Nokia unveiled a partnership on Thursday that will make Windows Phone 7 the main operating system for Nokia's smartphones. The hope is to create a combined software/hardware alliance to rival Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) popularity in this market segment, but many observers question whether the companies' united front will be powerful enough.

It can be argued that the flaws in Nokia's and Microsoft's smartphone strategies gave Apple its edge in the first place, and combining those two visions won't necessarily add up to success, notes Darrell Etherington at GigaOm. Etherington spells out several reasons that the partners face an uphill climb. Neither Nokia nor Windows Phone 7 has attracted as much enthusiasm from developers, and Apple is legions ahead in terms of available apps, he writes. There are approximately 8000 apps for Windows Phone 7, while there are nearly 350,000 available for Apple's iOS.

Apple also has a huge advantage in that it builds both the hardware and the software for its smartphones, and a partnership between two companies can't duplicate the cohesiveness and commonality of purpose of Apple's approach, he argues. "Apple's ability to pair the hardware and software development sides of making a smartphone not only allow it to win the UX game, but also advantageously affects cost and the pace of breakthroughs and advances, and downplays the importance of internal specifications," Etherington writes.

InfoWorld's Galen Gruman puts it much more bluntly, arguing that the partnership further fragments an already fragmented strategy at Nokia: "Not only will Nokia develop smartphones based on Microsoft's highly immature Windows Phone 7--a colossal mistake for Nokia--but it will continue its muddled Symbian and MeeGo efforts as well," he writes. "What this means is Nokia will continue to have a fractured strategy, relying on a new lackluster OS (Windows Phone 7) for its growth, a dying OS (Symbian) for the shrinking 'dumbphone' market, and (maybe) an unproven, unfinished OS (MeeGo) for the high-growth tablet market."

Sascha Segan at PC Magazine agrees that Nokia stands to lose from this arrangement, but he maintains that Microsoft and Apple will both win: "Windows Phone 7 was a second thought for Samsung and HTC; now it's the number-one platform for the number-one phone maker. If Nokia doesn't completely flub this, Microsoft's OS will now be a huge player in the smartphone market," Segan writes. "The iPhone killed Symbian. It was a slow death, but even Nokia admits that Symbian is dying because it couldn't keep up with the move towards finger-friendly interfaces incited by the iPhone. This deal validates the thought that Apple sets the agenda in mobile."

Fast Company's Kit Eaton isn't quite as pessimistic about Nokia's position, arguing that the partnership makes sense for the phone maker. "Nokia can leverage its production chains and high volume infrastructure setups to quickly give Windows Phone 7 a rocket-assist into the smartphone market, and the Finnish company instantly gives its smartphones a make-over with a hot, highly praised, new-generation operating system that makes its own efforts look bumbling and scattered," she writes.

For more:
- see Darrell Etherington's post at GigaOm
- see Galen Gruman's post at InfoWorld
- see Sascha Segan's post at PC Magazine
- see Kit Eaton's post at Fast Company

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