Nokia is offering salary increases and bonuses to its MeeGo engineers to keep them working on development of the company’s first MeeGo smartphone (N950), according to Finnish reports.  The smartphone is due to be launched sometime this year. The reports claim that Nokia has not told its developers what tasks they will be given after the N950.

The news is significant as Nokia last month announced it is to partner with Microsoft and use Windows Phone 7 (WP7) as its primary smartphone platform going forward. Although Nokia said at the time of the deal it still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product this year, the decision to opt for WP7 is undoubtedly a huge blow to MeeGo (Nokia’s high-end OS developed with Intel). It has been suggested that, long-term, Nokia will make thousands of MeeGo and Symbian developers redundant, although Nokia remains tight-lipped on the issue.