Rumours swirl as Nokia promises 'significant industry news' at Mobile World Congress

Make of it whatever you want, but Nokia has taken the unusual step of flagging up the importance of its Mobile World Congress press conference.

To be held on at 8.30am CET on Monday morning in Barcelona, Nokia says it will announce "significant industry news".

Obviously everything is speculation at this point, but the fact it's highlighted the situation ahead of time suggests that it's not a press conference that will be running through the usual array of new devices and shipment figures.

There's been speculation for some time that Microsoft might make a move to buy Nokia, or at least its smartphone business, although it's also been pointed out that with Nokia already committed to Windows Phone, full acquisition doesn't necessarily make sense.

CEO Stephen Elop has also called the rumours "baseless"

Arming up

Of course, with the mobile platform wars heating up - Apple expected to announce iPad 3 soon, Google buying Motorola, and even RIM staging some sort of recovery - Microsoft might have decide to get its own internal hardware team too.

At time of writing, Nokia shares were up 5 percent to $5.84, valuing the company at around $22 billion.

Microsoft has cash, cash equivalents and short terms investments worth around $51 billion.

You can see the livestream of Nokia's press conference at www.nokia.com/mwc

[source: Nokia]