Nokia admits it rejected Android; eyes "billions" in revenue from WP7 deal

I think the Nokia decision was the right one for Nokia, but the given reasons are BS.

Basically Nokia could have ended the smartphone war by joining with Android. But ironically, that makes them more valuable to Microsoft. This is just the same as Microsoft paying people to build apps for WP7, paying Verizon to use Bing, or paying devs not to release games on PS3 but on a massive, multi-billion dollar scale. It's a bit tragic when the greatest value your company can offer is to be paid to not join the dominant ecosystem in exchange for a cut of a desperate monopolist's war chest, but that's why you need to bring outsiders with no emotional attachment to your products in to do it.

So basically he wanted to "create a challenger" because Microsoft would pay them handsomely to do so. And if it doesn't work out, it's not like Android is going anywhere, so they've got a Plan B. (Though to be honest I think they're currently splitting the company into two pieces, the bit that will wring any remaining revenue from Symbian then close, and the bit that Microsoft will buy once they've sacked anyone Microsoft doesn't need. Microsoft will then try the PlaysForSure -> Zune thing again.)

I think Nokia wants to be a major player in the WP7 ecosystem rather than a minor player in the Android ecosystem. In an Android/Apple 'duopoly' every hardware maker except Apple has basically the same OS/app offering and Nokia would be playing catch-up against established android offerings - that is very scary to Nokia. The alternative is to partner with Microsoft and aim to be a major player in a 'third way' ecosystem. Really this isn't about how many ecosystems, its about the size of Nokia's slice of the ecosystem they chose. So they're taking the risk that WP7 will become a viable platform over the risk that they'd be a bit player in an Android world.

First a burning platform, now the challenger, this guy Elop really wants to go down in flames.

Nokia would ideally like to have an iOS of its own, either proprietary to Nokia phones or offered to other manufacturers but controlled (to whatever extent) by Nokia. Failing that, it would at least like to be "suited" again the next time it chooses a smartphone OS in a few years. Throwing its weight behind Android would make Android the de-facto standard, and that would probably close off those possibilities. (Though Android can likely make it to de-facto standard status without Nokia's help.)

Agreed. By the end of the year (early next year), we're going to have Android devices with 2, 3 and maybe 4-cores, as well as a version of Android that no one could guess at right now (2.4, 2.5, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0 maybe?). Apple is going to be the same way. I can't imagine Apple not announcing new iPhone(s) and a new iPad this year in order to compete, so anyone who isn't rocking new hardware by the end of the year is going to get left behind. I'm looking specifically at Nokia and RIM, whose current phones are so outdated that it'd be embarrassing NOT to release something spectacular this year.

It means "we can cut staff and save billions"

I totally would have bought a Nokia android. WTF is a 'Samsung' anyway? Opportunity missed, and now I would happily buy a samsung again.

> Nokia's operating expenses might have been reduced even further if they'd gone with Android (free) instead of WP7 (which they are paying to use).

MS fee is what? $10 per phone, probably less for Nokia? But, do anyone actually think that Android is free? Sure, it can be free if you're some cheap Chinese factory that just slaps the latest commit from Android repository on their handset, but key Google applications aren't open sourced, and to get them you need to make a deal with Google ("Google experience" apps, support, etc), which I doubt is free.

On top of that, if Nokia wants to differentiate itself from said Chinese manufacturer, they need to build some custom UI on top of stock Android (which probably everyone will hate, but that's the way of doing things in Android world). And to support that UI on couple of future Android releases in timely fashion for each handset, to avoid angry mob with obsolete phones mere months after the purchase (SonyEricsson, I'm looking at you). Developers time aren't free, and Nokia is notoriously bad at making software, just look at their Symbian record.

2 failing companies teaming up doesn't equal success in my book.

Nokia could have started making great hardware again like they used to. They could have put Android on it, and done what HTC does. Unfortunately they haven't made a good phone in a long while.

Would you say the same thing to a PC manufacturer after Windows 95 came out? Like it or not, Android is already the "Windows" of the phone industry. Going with another OS, that ust happens to have the Windows name on it, but with a much smaller market and momentum, is a catastrophic mistake.

What if this is going to be true a few years from now and Nokia fails with WP7 because the Android ecosystem assimilates everything. Will they still be able to go to Android? They'll be destroyed by then, and it will be way too late too switch. At least by going Android now, they would have a fighting chance, and would just need to become a competitive company again, which they haven't been for a while, even in hardware. Yes, the N8 looked pretty good, and the camera was nice, but that's about it.

I'm not entirely sure that 3 ecosystems will work out to the benefit of users. With just two platforms, there's a decent chance that top-selling apps will eventually be ported to both. But with 3 platforms, you'll see a lot more market fragmentation and picking of winners. Witness the Wii/XBox 360/PlayStation 3 mess.

And because Windows 7 Mobile allegedly runs a dodgy version IE 7, we can't make portable applications using HTML 5, either.

So we're really looking at something like 1985, when developers had to pick between DOS, the Apple IIe, the Mac, and the remnants of the 8-bit microcomputer market. In this market, the correct strategy was to support a single platform and hope that it won. Ironically, Microsoft ported Excel to a huge number of operating systems, and they were eaten alive by Lotus. They've never made the mistake of fragmenting their efforts again.