Nokia Was Developing An Android Phone Before The Microsoft Purchase
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It’s long been rumoured that Nokia NOK +0.79% was at least looking at developing an Android phone to either replace or work alongside its Microsoft MSFT +1.04% Windows line. But now we know that it was. My colleague speculated on what would have happened if one had been announced:
What if the Finnish company walked out on to the world’s tech stage with an Android powered smartphone?It’s a sentiment that is often discussed, and Nokia’s decision on February 11th 2011 to go with Windows Phone as their next smartphone OS, instead of Android, will be one that will continue to be analysed in tech circles.
We’ll never know of course as after the Microsoft takeover of that handsets business the one thing we’re sure of is that there aren’t going to be Android phones from this quarter.
But we’ve also got reports that Nokia very definitely looked at doing so:
SEATTLE — Before Microsoft reached a deal to buy Nokia’s phone business, there was a possibility that Nokia could have switched its smartphones to Google GOOG -0.45%’s Android operating system sometime after late 2014.And now, it is clear that a Nokia Android phone was more than a possibility. It was real.A team within Nokia had Android up and running on the company’s Lumia handsets well before Microsoft and Nokia began negotiating Microsoft’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone and services business.
As a technical task that wouldn’t have been all that difficult so there’s no great surprise that it was happening. Another reason for not being surprised is that Nokia’s deal with Microsoft over Windows Phone only ran until 2014. Nokia could turn to any OS it wanted after that date.
Looking at this from a business perspective of course Nokia would have been experimenting with running Android. They would, in fact, be near crazed not to make sure that they had an option if the deal with Microsoft wasn’t working out.
There’s still one very interesting thing that we don’t know though. Which is whether this was just engineering as usual or whether it was a serious attempt to flee the Microsoft OS. And the answer to that would tell us something about Steve Ballmer‘s decision to purchase that handset division of Nokia.
Think of it this way: I’m absolutely certain that there are people within Apple AAPL -1.64% playing with Android, jut as I’m certain there are those at Google playing with Windows Phone and those at Microsoft playing, as much as they can, with iOS 7. This is just what everyone does, looks at what everyone else is doing and plays with it. Aha! So that’s how they’ve managed to do that then is it?
But if Nokia was seriously thinking of dropping Windows Phone as a result of having done that playing around with Android then this might well have pushed Microsoft’s actions. After all, Nokia was 80% of the sales of Windows Phone: losing them would pretty much have meant an end to that OS as a serious player. Until and unless we get some more leaks we’ll not really know which of these two options is correct. Was the Nokia Android project just engineering as usual or the prelude to a significant change in business plans? And if the latter, is that what prompted Microsoft’s offer for the company?
