Russian tech blogger and analyst Eldar Murtazin, the man credited for predicting the Nokia-Microsoft tie-up way back in December, has published a damning report that claims Microsoft sold only 674,000 Windows Phone 7 devices in its first six weeks.

Using 2010 data he claims he received from operators and retailers, Murtazin said Microsoft only sold 674,000 WP7 units in November and December, when you take out the number of phones given to all its employees.

"Failure? Definitely yes. Unfortunately, in spite of the ecosystem, developer support, Microsoft could not create a product that would be attractive to the consumer," Murtazin wrote in a blog post (Google translated).

This contrasts from the 1.5 million WP7 devices Microsoft claims it sold during the same time period; in late January Microsoft said it had sold 2 million phones. PCMag analyst Sascha Segan later clarified that when Microsoft says "sold" it really means "sent to carriers or licensed by manufacturers." (For more, read How Many Windows Phones Have Really Been Sold?.)

Microsoft representatives declined to comment.

In January, an LG executive slipped that he was not happy with WP7 sales. "From an industry perspective we had a high expectation, but from a consumer point of view the visibility is less than we expected," said LG marketing director, James Choi.

On Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a surprise appearance at the BlackBerry World conference to announce a new partnership with RIM that will make Bing the default search engine in the BlackBerry OS.

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 9:36 PM with a response from Microsoft.