Nokia has signalled its intent to catch up with the exploding smartphone industry and in achieving that, the giant phone maker tapped Microsoft Corporation to provide the Windows Phone 7 OS to the new breed of handsets that the company will start issuing next year.

That means existing Nokia phones powered by its internally-developed Symbian OS will see retirement as the Finnish firm indicated that such handsets, at least in the high-end segments, and the mobile platform will be phased out over the next two years.

In its latest blog this week, Nokia said that it has sealed an agreement with Indian firm Accenture that will ensure continued support for handsets running on the Symbian operating system.

The company said that its deal with Accenture will not only provide adequate technical support for the Symbian OS, which Nokia said currently powers some 225 million phones worldwide, but also for the development of new apps for the platform.

The Nokia-Accenture agreement will last until 2016, which will mark the full departure of Symbian OS from Nokia's high-end handsets.

Despite that spectre, Nokia assured current phone owners that run on Symbian that not only software upgrades will be facilitated by Accenture, more smartphones will be launched with the mobile platform powering the handsets.

Along that line, Nokia has released on Wednesday the new Symbian edition it christened Symbian Anna, which the company said will be deployed on 10 Nokia smartphones that will be introduced over the next 12 months.

The strategy is hoped to push for the sale of up to 150 millions Nokia devices still powered by the Symbian OS within the same period, Nokia said, along with the expected rousing debut of WP7 on Nokia handsets next year, which experts said could reach dominance by 2015.

The new Symbian Anna, according to Nokia, will be available for free download by the third quarter of 2011 and can be installed on most of the handsets sold by the company during the past two years.