Nokia's adoption of Windows Phone 7 has gone down well  with the large cellcos, but less well with its customer base, according  to a survey on the Finnish firm's own blog. 
The  large mobile operators were reported to have urged Nokia not to support  Android, and were keen to see MeeGo, or failing that, WP7, strengthened  as a counterweight to Google. Now that the dust has settled on the  Nokia-Microsoft marriage, Vodafone Germany's CEO Jan Geldmacher has  expressed the support of the cellco community, saying it will be good  for competition in the smartphone sector.
"We  are very much looking forward to the new products that will come from  the cooperation between Microsoft and Nokia," he said, though he does  not agree with Nokia chief Stephen Elop that there is now a "three-horse  race" for high end handsets. Instead, he still sees RIM as hugely  important, especially in the business field, and said: "We think that a  fourth operating system, with Nokia and Microsoft, will be a positive  thing for the market overall."
There  were more mixed reactions on the Nokia Conversations blog, where the  vendor was surveying its users on their response to the WP7 deal. More  than one in five did not want the new OS at all, with these people split  about evenly between preferring MeeGo and Symbian. The survey asked  what would be most appealing about WP7 on a Nokia device, but most of  the 22.6% who ticked the 'other' category said they wanted to stick with  the existing platforms. 
On  the positive side for Microsoft, 22% said the unique user interface was  the most attractive feature to them, though it was not indicated whether  this meant the UI in its current form - a hallmark of the  Nokia-Microsoft alliance was the freedom for the Finnish partner to  create its own own overlays and user experience, which has not been  permitted to other OEMs (even HTC's popular Sense UI, which spanned  Windows Mobile and Android, is hidden one layer down on WP7). 
Other  highly rated features were Xbox games support, integration with Windows  PCs, higher resolution screens and even support for the IE9 browser.  Nokia said that Microsoft data indicated that 90% of current WP7 users  would recommend the platform to others. 
Not  that it is killing Symbian any time soon - it still expects to sell  about 150m devices in the coming few years, mainly to low end profiles  or as updates for the existing, 200m-strong installed base. At the  recent Asian launch of the E7 phone, Vlasta Berka, general manager for  Nokia Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, said: "Just because we are  changing our direction in terms of a smartphone platform, it doesn't  mean that the existing platform is completely broken. We still have  obligations to our users, developers, business partners, and customers."  And the first (perhaps only) MeeGo handset, the N950, will make its  debut soon.
 
 
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