Hiring an ex Microsoft executive - Stephen Elop - as its new CEO to shake up its business has certainly had the desired impact for Nokia.

The companies have just announced a broad and longterm strategic smartphone partnership to build a new global ecosystem.

Together forever

For Nokia, this means it will adopt the Windows Phone OS as its principal smartphone strategy, ditching Symbian and MeeGo, its joint venture with Intel.

It's an non exclusive deal, so other phone OEMs will continue to use the Windows Phone OS if they wish. 

In addition, Nokia will help Microsoft drive the future of Windows Phone, bringing the platform to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies. At the moment, Windows Phone 7 is limited to a set number of high-end devices.

Other areas of collaboration will include a joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap.

Nokia Maps will become a core part of Microsoft's mapping services, while Bing will power Nokia's search services across its devices and services.

Other Microsoft services such as Xbox Live will also come to Nokia devices, while Nokia's operator billing agreements will be rolled out making it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.

Developers will use Microsoft development tools to run on Nokia Windows Phones.

Nokia also said its content and Ovi application store would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace.

Shake it up

"Today, developers, operators and consumers want compelling mobile products, which include not only the device, but the software, services, applications and customer support that make a great experience," said Stephen Elop, Nokia president and CEO.

"Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale. It's now a three-horse race."

"I am excited about this partnership with Nokia," said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.

"Ecosystems thrive when fueled by speed, innovation and scale. The partnership announced today provides incredible scale, vast expertise in hardware and software innovation and a proven ability to execute."

You can see Elop and Ballmer give a short explanation of the deal here.

[source: Nokia]