Steve Ballmer will announce Nokia Windows Phones next week

SOFTWARE FIRM Microsoft will take to the stage with Nokia next week to unveil their first Windows Phone handset(s).

The first rather obvious clue to the announcement came when shy and retiring Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke at the Web 2.0 summit on Wednesday. In a question and answer session he said that the first fruits of the device development would appear on a London stage at the Nokia World conference, which is expected to keep car parks busy at the Excel Exhibition Centre.

Yesterday, Andy Lees, Microsoft's head of mobile devices, added a little more colour to the Ballmer hint and, according to the Wall Street Journal, reminded us what a great deal this is for both parties.

"We're very excited for them to be in the market," he said while speaking at the All Things Digital Asia conference in Hong Kong. "They have resources around the world and that's going to be a huge accelerant for us."

According to the Associated Press the announcements were tinged with braggadocio and Lees said that the idea of a Nokia and Microsoft tie up had Google nervous. He did not mention Apple we assume, which might seem odd until you remember that the Iphone is second only to Android devices in the smartphone market.

He added hopefully that although the companies might be playing catch-up in the smartphone arena the Windows Phone is ready to leap into the market and start taking a decent share.

"We've been working hard on building an architecture that allows us to leapfrog our competitors by using the best components available," he explained as he added that so pleased was Nokia so far that it had "decided to bet [its] whole company on Windows Phone." µ