HTC Exec "100% Convinced" In Windows Phone 7, Scorns Nokia For Not Ditching Symbian

HTC are generally pretty upbeat and uncontroversial about their rivals, but obviously their Australia/New Zealand sales & marketing director, Anthony Petts, didn't get that particular memo.  He's been talking up Windows Phone 7 with Smarthouse, and as well as insisting that he's "100-percent convinced that the new Windows Mobile will be highly successful," he also saved a few barbs for poor old Nokia.  "Symbian is an old operating system" Petts says, "and it's proving much harder for Nokia to re position the brand in the current market."

"You have to give it to Microsoft, unlike Nokia with their Symbian operating system; Microsoft has bitten the bullet, ditched their old operating system and is now set to launch a new OS that we believe will be highly competitive" Anthony Petts, HTC

Petts is not only convinced that Windows Phone 7 will be a winner, he also expects it to bite into Nokia's market share.  Phones running the new Microsoft OS are expected to launch roughly at the same time as Nokia's N8, the Finnish company's upcoming high-end device which runs Symbian^3.

However, you could well argue that Nokia's real smartphone strategy depends not on some flavor of Symbian but on MeeGo, their open-source collaboration with Intel.  That's expected to show up on high-end devices such as the recently leaked Nokia N9, and which should present a much stronger challenge with Windows Phone 7.

As for the rumored HTC tablet – tipped to run a Google OS and hit Verizon as early as Black Friday – Petts declined to comment.

[via wmpoweruser]