Rumor has it Microsoft is looking to purchase Nokia's mobile phone business, according to media reports and clues sprinkled on Twitter this week.

“Eldar Murtazin, whose track record at predicting monumental changes over at Nokia is pretty good, reported early Wednesday that the deal is apparently sealed,” InformationWeek reported.

According to Murtazin’s Twitter profile, he is editor-in-chief of Russia-based Mobile-Review.com, and has more than 20,000 followers.

“One small software company decided last week that they could spent 19 bln USD to buy a part of small phone vendor,” Murtazin tweeted. “That’s it.”

Yet, sometimes a rumor is just that.

Nokia originally declined to comment on the most recent statement by Murtazin, but later called it “100 percent baseless,” according to a Reuters report.

Shares in mobile phone handset maker Nokia jumped on Wednesday in reaction to a reports that said Microsoft Corp had struck a deal to buy its mobile phone business for $19 billion, Reuters said.

A Microsoft spokesperson told InformationWeek, “Microsoft does not comment on rumor or speculation.”

Murtazin later tweeted at about 1:30 p.m. EST, asking if his prediction was really so off, why Nokia executives would be “angry.”

“Why Nokia stuff so angry about me today? If my facts baseless, then why you so angry? I think that you want better price, yeah? :)”

In April, Nokia and Microsoft announced significant progress on the development of the first Nokia products incorporating Windows Phone in addition to agreeing to the terms of their partnership, including joint contributions to the development of the new ecosystem. The companies are collaborating on a portfolio of new Nokia devices, with hundreds of personnel already engaged on joint engineering efforts, Microsoft stated in a press release.

Recently, former Microsoft veteran Stephen Elop, who joined Nokia last September to become the first non-Finn to head the company, sold all his shares in Microsoft worth €1 million (about $1.4 million) and used the money for buying 150,000 shares in the Finnish mobile phone company.