Sort of a dog-bites-man story here, the thing happened that everyone thought would happen. Nokia has made a deal with Microsoft to have Windows Phone 7 be the operating system on future Nokia smartphones, thus killing the Symbian operating system. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who has only been on the job a few months, is a former Microsoft guy and he recently called Nokia’s smartphone system a “burning platform”. Really it came down to going with Google/Android or Microsoft and it might have just come down to the names already in his address book. Elop and Steve Ballmer announced the plan in London this morning.

Meanwhile, Nokia is slashing thousands of jobs in Finland.

So what does this mean? More Windows phones on the market at least for a while. But it’s hard to see how either side helps the other much in the long uphill fight for consumers’ pockets.