HTC’s chief marketing officer John Wang said at the Mobile World Congress trade show that the development is “is going to make the ecosystem even better for everybody, including HTC.”

Analysts have speculated that Nokia’s adoption of Windows Phone would scare off other, smaller manufacturers like HTC and LG Electronics Inc.

HTC Corp. of Taiwan was for a long time almost exclusively a maker of Windows phones, but diversified in the last two years with Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

Even so, Wang said that HTC is “committed to Microsoft".

Nokia will get billions of dollars from Microsoft Corp. to ditch its current smart-phone software in favor of Windows Phone 7, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said earlier in defense of the deal.

Elop, a former Microsoft executive, said Finland-based Nokia had been courted by Google as well, which sought to convince it to use its popular Android software for smart phones. Microsoft’s payments are recognition that Nokia had “substantial value to contribute,” said Elop.