Mark Bridge writes:

In the world of retail, you can’t move for Hallowe’en puns at the moment. You know the kind of thing. Spooky offers. Frighteningly low prices. Missing our deals will haunt you. There’s not the ghost of a chance we’ll shift these PlayBooks unless we cut the price.

Nokia World - the company’s biggest public-facing event, which takes place in London today and tomorrow - has been opened this morning by CEO and president Stephen Elop.

Products revealed at the event include the ‘Asha’ range of devices, which combine smartphone-like design with Nokia’s S40 feature phone platform. But the biggest and most-expected news was the appearance of the first Windows Phone-based Nokia smartphones.

Handset manufacturer Nokia, which is expected to reveal its first Windows Phone devices at Nokia World in London next week, has published financial results for the third quarter of 2011.

Overall net sales fell to 8.98 billion Euro, down 13% on the previous year, with the company making a loss for the quarter.

Fashion designer Jil Sander has created her own mobile phone, called simply the ‘Jil Sander Mobile’. It’s been built by LG and runs ‘Mango’ version 7.5 of the Windows Phone operating system.

The device will be available in the UK as well as in Austria, France, Italy and Germany.

Samsung is the latest company to sign a patent licensing deal with Microsoft. In this case it’s a broad agreement to cross-license the patent portfolios of both companies, with Microsoft receiving royalties for Samsung’s mobile phones and tablets running the Android mobile platform.

The companies have also agreed to cooperate in the development and marketing of Windows Phone.