Nokia and Microsoft alliance to produce smartphones using Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 software. A strategy designed to compete against Google and Apple in the smartphone market, the deal marks a major breakthrough for Microsoft by putting its software into 30 million smartphones sold by Nokia every quarter.

The Nokia Microsoft Marriage is closed watched by rivals and sparked a lively Twitter exchange. Google's vice president of engineering, Vic Gundotra, tweeted this week that "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle." Nokia's CEO, Elop, struck back by invoking the Wright Brothers: "Two bicycle makers, from Dayton Ohio, one day decided to fly."

The race is now on for the software and hardware giants to prove their new phones can fly.