Things haven’t been looking up for Nokia the past few months, and so rumors of an alliance with Google for Android or Microsoft for Windows Phone 7 have been cropping up everywhere. The latter really took off when Nokia picked up ex-Microsoft exec Stephen Elop as its new CEO. We’ve given plenty of takes on the rumor and whether we think it’s feasible or if it even makes sense for Nokia to go the WP7 route, but new rumors suggest that the two just might meld.
Also feeding the speculation were Mr. Elop’s comments to analysts on January 27.
At the time, he said Nokia was going to set individual strategies for each of its low-, mid- and high-price phone businesses, a departure from its traditional global approach. Under the new system, Mr. Elop said Nokia was open to “create and/or join other ecosystems.”
The comments from Mr. Elop are being interpreted by some as a signal that Nokia plans to drop Symbian for Windows on U.S. smartphones, one of the weakest parts of the Finnish company’s business.
It seems much of this is the same old speculation that has been going on for some time. However, even a former Nokia employee has made assertions that Nokia isn’t going to be touching the Microsoft mobile operating for quite some time – if ever.
Nokia has been slipping and lost its dominant position in the marketplace to the likes of Apple and Google. Perhaps Elop’s response that it was open to creating or joining other ecosystems might have been more of a reference to MeeGo, which the company is working on. In terms of joining ecosystems – like Android, which is open – the Finnish manufacturer made it clear in the past that doing so is just a temporary security blanket.
For now, I’ll keep my reservations about seeing Nokia build WP7 handsets. The last thing it needs is to jump into an ecosystem that still needs a lot of maturing and where it might get lost in a flood of mediocre phones.
[Via: NYT]