Nokia is to give all its registered developers an E7 smartphone. And if a Symbian-based handset doesn't appeal - as well it might not given last week's announcement - it's going to give them a Nokia Windows Phone 7 handset too.

There's no confirmation from Nokia itself of the deal, which was made public by mobile games developer Steve Stroughton Smith - he ported Doom to the iPhone, for example - in a Tweet sent out this morning:

"Nokia dev program ftw! '[…] one free Nokia E7 device to all members. Additionally, we will send to you one free Nokia WP7 device' on launch!"

The email Nokia sent to developers has begun to leak out too.

Since WinPho 7 will become Nokia's self-confessed "primary smartphone platform", what better way to get developers quickly porting from S60 to the Microsoft OS than giving them hardware.

It's a costly process, mind, but it could be just what's needed to calm fevered brows and accelerate the switch from Symbian. The E7 provides a little incentive to stay with Nokia for the time being, but it's the prospect of the juicy new tech in the WinPho 7 phone that will really keep the coders happy. ®

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