Nokia and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership for creating a new mobile ecosystem presumably aimed at taking on Apple, Android, RIM, and HP, though Nokia CEO Stephen Elop says it’s now a "three-horse race." 

Android is now the leading smartphone platform according to Canalys, which just published its Q4 2010 report on the subject. Shipments of smartphones with Google’s mobile operating system reached 32.9 million. 

The fourth quarter saw 101.2 million smart phone shipments in all, representing an in crease of 89% year-over-year.

The global mobile phone market grew 17.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, a new quarterly high driven by smartphones, according to a new report from IDC.

Vendors shipped 401.4 million units in Q4 compared to 340.5 million units in Q4 of 2009. Vendors shipped a total of 1.39 billion units on a cumulative worldwide basis in 2010, up 18.5% from the 1.17 billion units shipped in 2009.

In November 2010, the number of U.S. visitors to web-based email sites decreased 6 percent compared to the previous year, while email engagement declined at a greater rate, according to a new report from comScore.

During the same time period, the number of users accessing email via their mobile devices grew by 36 percent.

The title we went with on this article may come off as a bit sensational, but some pretty high profile web veterans might not think so. 

Speaking at Bristol University in the UK, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, had some less than positive things to say this week about the direction the web is taking – the app direction. As quoted by computing.co.uk:

Mobile broadband subscriptions surpassed the half a billion mark globally in 2010 and are on track to double before this year ends, according to a new report from Ericsson.

The greatest number of mobile broadband subscriptions, around 400 million, is expected to be in the Asia Pacific region, followed by North America and Western Europe with more than 200 million subscriptions each.

A whole lot of smartphones – and in particular, Android phones – are going to find their way into new owners’ hands next year, according to one expert.  Seth Weintraub recently predicted that 500 million smartphones might sell, with Google’s mobile operating system accounting for a lot of the purchases.

The global smartphone market reached a new milestone in the third quarter of 2010 (Q32010), with the top vendors posting significant growth, according to a new report from IDC.

Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 81.1 million units, up 89.5 percent from the 42.8 million units shipped during Q309. For the first three quarters of 2010, vendors have shipped a total of 200.6 million units, up 67.6% from the 119.6 million units shipped during the first three quarters of 2009.

Apple and Google have become known for taking shots at one another during announcements and presentations. We talked about this at length here. However, Google’s not the only target of Steve Jobs these days. BlackBerry maker RIM was on the receiving end of some other harsh comments from Apple’s CEO this week when the company reported its financial results for the last quarter. 

Microsoft showed off its new Windows Phone 7 devices this week. There are a lot of questions about how Microsoft will perform in the smartphone space, though they’re clearly up to the challenge. Microsoft’s success in this space also has big implications for the company’s performance in the search market, which means search marketers should keep an eye on this.

Microsoft unveiled 9 new Windows Phone 7 smartphones that will be available for the holidays in various parts of the world. Microsoft has partnerships with AT&T, T-Mobile, Telus, O2, Orange, SFR, Movistar, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, SingTel, and Telstra that will produce smartphone availability in the very near future. 

Earlier this year, we asked which would be more critical to marketing between the iPhone and Android. While not everyone agreed, many of you thought Android. We’ve gotta say, it’s not looking like this assumption is wrong so far. 

Google said today it has made a number of improvements to its finance for smartphones site it launched in August.

Google Finance for smartphones users can now view mutual funds’ prices, and stats by entering the ticker into the search box.

Smartphone users can can also view wider stock charts by turning their phone on its side for a landscape view.

Millennial Media has released its Mobile Marketing Mix report for the month of August. Among its findings are continued Android growth, as well as significant iPad growth. The firm points to the following as the highlights:

The average amount of time people keep their cell phone has increased by 17 percent from 2009, according to a new study from J.D. Power and Associates.

 People are keeping their mobile devices for an average of 20.5 months, which is the longest period off time since the study began in 1999, when the average was 17.3 months. The current level of ownership does differ by brand, with the highest ownership at an average of 27.8 months, and the lowest at 17.5 months.

As reported earlier, Nokia has announced a new family of smartphones powered by the Symbian platform. The Nokia E7, C7 and C6 join the previously announced N8. 

Nokia has announced a new family of smartphones powered by the new Symbian platform. The devices are integrated with enhanced Ovi services and apps. They are the Nokia E7, the Nokia C7 and the Nokia C6. 

The latest version of Symbian comes with over 250 new features such as HDMI support, multiple personalized home screens, multipoint touch, multitasking and "turbo charged" graphics.

Mobile ad network Millennial Media released its latest Mobile Mix report this morning. Android is now officially the number 2 OS on Millennial’s network. The Android OS grew another 47% month-over-month. Since January, Android has grown 690%. Android surpassed RIM as the number 2 OS on the network.

Apple ad requests increased 24% month-over-month, but are actually down 15% since January. iPad ad requests grew 327% month-over-month, however.

Here are the top manufacturers and devices:

Fast Company has an interview with none other than Chad Ochocinco, receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals who makes as much of an impact on online pop culture as he does on the football field (perhaps more so). He wants to get rid of Farmville.

While Apple may have dominated the headlines with iPads and iPhones, 2010 has been a pretty good year for Android. Now Consumer Reports is recommending a variety of Android devices.

Android Headlines points to September’s issue of Consumer Reports, which ranks smartphones. Eight different ones made the "Recommend List" including:

- Motorola Droid
- HTC Droid Incredible
- HTC Droid Eris

Research in Motion (RIM) announced its latest smartphone today, the BlackBerry Curve 3G. The plan for the device appears to be to win over non-smartphone users.