There have been several rumblings of Nokia adopting a competing OS for use on its hardware, most recently Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. Although they've pretty much been shot down every time, the possibility of a Nokia-branded WP7 device has popped up again today. Nokia is holding its Capital Markets Day event next Friday, Feb. 11th, and the rumor is that the company will announce a partnership with Microsoft which could bring a mashup of Nokia's hardware and Microsoft's software at some point in the future. A "trusted source" speaking to Engadget says that, as a result of the OS switch, the Finnish-based company will be dropping its support of either Symbian or MeeGo.

Like I said before, these rumors of Nokia switching to Android or WP7 have often been denied pretty quickly, but there are a couple of pieces of evidence this time around that support the latest claims. First off, of course, is the fact that Stephen Elop, Nokia's CEO, came to the company after serving as the president of Microsoft's business division. Then we have a quote from Elop that's only a week or two old: when asked what Nokia must do to turn things around, the CEO said that it needs to "build or join a competitive ecosystem."

A Nokia WP7 device would certainly be interesting, but I'm not sure how well it'd do with consumers, at least here in the U.S. Nokia isn't huge here, at least partially because they've got basically zero presence on the carriers' shelves, and some believe that, since Microsoft hasn't shared solid WP7 sales numbers, that platform isn't selling terribly well. Android could end up being a better choice for Nokia, although I'm sure that if Nokia is unwilling to drop Symbian or MeeGo for WP7, they'd be even less interested in eliminating one of them for Android. What do you all think? Is Nokia going to adopt a competing OS? If so, which should they choose?

Via Engadget, NYT