Nokia ST-Ericsson deal designed for Windows Phone 8 with dual-core chips

By Tom Warren, on 2nd Nov 11 5:38 pm with 23 Comments

Windows Phone Apollo

Nokia’s ST-Ericsson chipset deal is designed for Windows Phone 8.

ST-Ericsson announced on Wednesday that Nokia has selected it as a supplier for future Windows Phone devices. The deal will see Nokia use ST-Ericsson in future Windows Phone devices. ST-Ericsson’s CEO, Gilles Delfassy, revealed on Wednesday that the deal is designed for Windows Phone 8 devices. Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires, Delfassy revealed the deal “isn’t an immediate undertaking.” He also revealed that the deal is not exclusive but that ST-Ericsson plans to supply chipsets to the Finnish handset maker “as early as possible in as many devices as possible.”

The confirmation of dual-core chips for Windows Phone 8 follows a statement by a Nokia executive at Nokia World last week. Michael Halbherr, a senior Nokia executive, revealed that Microsoft’s Windows Phone Apollo (Windows Phone 8 ) will be a “very different game” and will include support for NFC and a better “positioning framework” for Windows Phone. Little is known about Apollo at this stage but industry insiders believe the codename will eventually become known as Windows Phone 8.

Microsoft is already working on its next versions of Windows Phone. Tango is believed to be an interim release between Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” and the next-generation of Windows Phone, currently codenamed “Apollo.” There is reportedly two versions of Tango scheduled for release before Windows Phone “Apollo” is ready. Tango is allegedly designed with Nokia in mind and focused on lowering the price point for entry Windows Phone handsets. Windows Phone build 7.10.8200 was recently discovered in server side logs of a Windows Phone application. A screenshot, believed to be a Tango build, also leaked last month and demonstrated a new device search feature for Windows Phones.

Microsoft has already started seeking customer feedback for its Windows Phone future releases. The software giant is curating feedback from end users to record the most requested features for future versions of Windows Phone. The feedback is recorded and publicly viewable for others to rate and comment on over at Microsoft’s suggestions forum. Top requests include enable all (bing)features for non US-countries, Device Backup and Turn-by-turn GPS.

  • http://profiles.google.com/joshrowe.ice Joshua Rowe

    in b4 current windows phone devices don’t get apollo.

    • BigChiefSmokem

      Oh wow if we do get Apollo, even with a lot of the newer hardware-supported features disabled, Microsoft would have redeemed itself completely in my eyes with regards to WP7

      My HD7 is now a year old and is still rocking thanks to Mango! The more updates I get the less money I have to fork over to the carrier for a new phone/contract…. rather give my money to the Big M than the Big ******** (fill in as you please).

  • Anonymous

    The question I had was would there be any downside if Nokia put the dual core chips in phones before WP8 came? I mean the WP7.5 would just utilize one core right?

    • GP007

      I think MS hasn’t added dual-core support into 7.5 itself yet, well, the core kernel and subsystems should support multiple processing anyways but the upper level “Windows Phone” bits probably don’t.   So it’d be hard to just toss in a dual core SoC and get any advantage, it’d be a waste to do so I bet.

      I think MS wants to get the SDK/tools and by extention all the APIs and so on to be fully dual core supported so that, like with fast app switching in Mango, all a WP dev would have to do is recompile the app, or do some minor code work, and get full multi-core support for their app like that.

    • Collins

      Sorry, but none of this is true. WP7′s kernel is Windows CE 6.0 R3 which doesn’t support multiple cores. Furthermore, concurrency (multi-threadedness) is NEVER achieved by simply recompiling an app (or at least yet). A developer must always explicitly request and pragmatically utilize one or more extra threads (beyond the primary thread) which the OS can then schedule to run on one or more cores.

  • http://twitter.com/pierrerv Pierre Venescar

    when Apollo comes out, I’m gonna get a new phone

    • Anonymous

      Hope its out by next November when my contract comes to an end.

    • GP007

      I think we could see WP8 faster than everyone expects and with Nokia and also Samsung/HTC now pushing WP more it should happen.   Unless we see otherwise I bet on WP8 in the summer instead of the fall of 2012.

    • Anonymous

      Hope you are right.  Seems rather quick though.  Around that time this year some people were still waiting on the NoDo update.

    • Anonymous

      7.5 was RTM on July 27.

      It takes time from when the OS is released until devices become available

    • Anonymous

      When Apollo comes out, I’ll be off to the moon again…before anyone else does…

      Dual-core, for WP8…is gonna rock…

      Apollo, we dont have a problem…

  • Anonymous

    I’m starting to think that it might be worth waiting until Windows Phone 8 comes out on superior hardware. Smartphone is an investment, not a cheap throwaway.

    • Anonymous

      The two year contract system begs to differ.  Personally, I do wish the carriers would stop that business model and just reduce their monthly prices.  People would have to buy their phones at full price but it would encourage more re-use and save everyone money in the end.

    • Anonymous

      The issue isn’t the carriers, it’s our insatiable lust for the latest greatest device. Can’t people use a smartphone for 4-5 years?

    • Justfortherecord

      There is no complaint in Europe or Asia ArrowSmith. Paying up front would actually lower the cost of the over all expenditure to the consumer and make the market more competitive.

      for instance adequately equipped smartphone w/out contract 499.99 no contract at a lower  – 50/month service

       499.99 + (50X24) no contract restrictions change as you please(carrier) =1699.99

      2 year subsidized contract at 75 to 100.00/month plus a 199.99 to 299.99 smart phone

      199.99 + (100X24) = $2,559.00(for two years)

      So subsidized phone with two year contract = 2,559.09

      No subsidized phone with no multi-year contract =1,699.99

      pretty simple unsubsidized is the way to go and if you were on the existing plan to break your contract would cost you 200.00 in cancellation charges
       

    • Anonymous

      @ArrowSmith:disqus That is a noble suggestion, but right now, the technology is advancing so fast that I personally would probably want to get a new phone every 2 or 3 years.  Soon though I expect things to level off like they have in the laptop and desktop area.  I mean, things are still getting better, but your 5 year old laptop should be perfectly capable of running even Windows 8.

      @2d75c6a3459d11a259b3bc4a9872289c:disqus I like that business model.  Problem in the US is that the carriers do not give us that option.  You are going to pay the same rate per month whether you get a subsidized phone or not.  At least as far as I know.

  • Anonymous

    Good Dual core is needed but it should be like 2Ghz dual core

    • Collins

      Using current process technology, granting your wish would leave you with a device that lasts no more than 4 hours on a single charge. That may be what you want, but most people would not be amused. Furthermore, we really need to stop pretending that GHz is at all a useful indicator of processor performance (we have Intel’s ridiculous marketing campaign during the Pentium era to thank for this nonsense). Assuming that two different CPU’s at the same clock frequency perform similarly is utterly wrong. We will see more pronounced examples of this in 2012. What you really should be asking for are CPU’s that can execute more instructions per second at lower clock rates (better performance while lowering power consumption)… but that requires going beyond simple GHz values and looking at CPU benchmarks. It really would be nice if our hardware would actually run our software better, instead of being tailored to provide the best possible spec sheet :-(

  • Justfortherecord

    US carriers know that paying up front may feel like someone is ripping your heart out in this case 499.99 or more so they play nice like car salesman trying to make you sign a lease(scam) rather than buy. Carriers need to be convinced that this is the way to go. Here is a list of current NorthAmerican carriers
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless_communications_service_providers

  • Collins

    From what I’ve heard, Microsoft intended for Qualcomm to be the ONLY SoC
    supplier (S2 for WP7 and S4 for WP8). This is certainly something
    Microsoft didn’t want, but that Nokia pushed for. Assuming Microsoft is
    still planing to deliver WP8 on Qualcomm’s Krait, then we are witnessing
    the beginning of Hardware fragmentation for WP8. As a developer
    targeting WP8, you would no longer have a precisely defined hardware
    spec to program against. This is bad. Damn you Nokia!

  • Collins

    To all of you who think this is a good thing… ARE YOU SERIOUS?

    From what I’ve heard, Microsoft intended for Qualcomm to be the ONLY SoC supplier (S2 for WP7 and S4 for WP8). This is certainly something Microsoft didn’t want, but that Nokia pushed for. Assuming Microsoft is still planing to deliver WP8 on Qualcomm’s Krait, then we are witnessing the beginning of Hardware fragmentation for WP8. As a developer targeting WP8, you would no longer have a precisely defined hardware spec to program against. Sure, making your program run nicely on two different platforms with different CPU to GPU perforamnce ratios isn’t impossible at not nearly as bad as in the realm of android, but still… not having to worry about such differences is (or was) one of windows phones big advantages. Damn you Nokia!

  • http://www.magento-themes.jextn.com Magento Themes

    It opens up completely new opportunities.Thanks for such a great post and the review, I am totally impressed! Keep stuff like this coming.

  • Rebbe

    Apollo will be shown at mvc 2013 if you belive http://msnerd.tumblr.com/page/3