Nokia CEO Stephen Elop recently participated in an interview with UK publication The Guardian. A large chunk of the interview focused on Nokia’s decision to adopt Windows Phone as the primary OS it would deploy on smartphones, rather than sticking with its own Symbian OS or hopping on the Android bandwagon like the competition.
Elop brings quite a few good points to the interview mainly addressing why Nokia steered away from Android. The simple answer is because most Android phone manufacturers aren’t even doing all that well in the business with the exception of Samsung.
“Now fast forward to today and examine the Android ecosystem, and there’s a lot of good devices from many companies, but one company has essentially now become the dominant player,” Elop said. He later added, “You look at a number of other Android providers right now and they’re in a tough spot.”
Overall, Elop doesn’t regret the decision at all to choose Windows Phone because as he says, Nokia and Microsoft have managed to create a “third ecosystem” good for some healthy competition.
“I’m very happy with the decision we made. What we were worried about a couple of years ago was the very high risk that one hardware manufacturer could come to dominate Android,” he commented. Elop also said that having strong partners like AT&T not only helps Nokia stay afloat but also pushes them forward to gain some prominence within the market.
Could Windows Phone and Nokia both be doing better? Yes. I do think Elop makes several good arguments for the decision to adopt Microsoft’s OS though. It’s very plausible that had Nokia chosen Android, the company would be in a worse position than it is today with Windows Phone.