Analysis - Should Nokia adopt Android or WP7? I think not

[HEXUS]

Ahead of an analyst day and a probable MWC launch, there’s a growing clamour for Nokia to follow the herd.

Read more.

[MSIC]

I am still finding it incredible that Meego isnt a launched, 'in-use' OS, especially given the recent news about exactly how much R&D spend goes on at Nokia.
The videos that i've seen (never of course having seen a Meego device in person) seem fine... but i'm a bit apathetic to it to be honest. I dont consider myself to have a strong affinity to any brand or OS, having used many in my time, and if Nokia suddenly announced a great user interface with strong hardware & features, I may well consider them... and yet the truth is that it's been over 5 years (at least) since ive considered buying a Nokia for personal use. Can anyone involved in tech circles remember the last time there was significant buzz about a new Nokia phone coming out? Meh!

And yet $3.9 billion spent on R&D in 2010 alone suggests some very poor management to me, given how little there is to show for it.

As with your editorial, i'd be very much against the idea of Win7mobile on a Nokia, but for $4 billion you'd have thought that they could develop an entire OS and ecosystem from scratch, within 1 year.
Poor showing, Nokia.

[jimborae]

An interesting peice that provoked enough reaction for me to comment. Initially I thought I agreed with the claim that essencially all android devices are the same. (I'm a huge android fan). But then I thought about it a bit more. To techie person they probably are all very similar but to a non techie I think the differenciators such as HTC Sense or whatever Samsung call their crap interface probably do make a huge difference. A non techie with an Android phone but with an OEM skin/theme etc. may not even know that it's Android under the hood. So on reflection I'd disagree with this point, sure the app market will be the same Google one but the main funtions of the phone will be different i.e. Social widgets, email, dialler keyboards etc.

As for the main point about Nokia yep I agree it probably would be bad for their declared stratergy to team up with MS or jump to Google. But all of what I've seen of MeeGo has been pants so they seriously need to show the market something new & improved; the trouble is Nokia has never been known for their intuative interfaces and I'm not expecting that to change.

[Scott B]

A non techie with an Android phone but with an OEM skin/theme etc. may not even know that it's Android under the hood. So on reflection I'd disagree with this point, sure the app market will be the same Google one but the main funtions of the phone will be different i.e. Social widgets, email, dialler keyboards etc.

Despite writing about it the whole time I actually don't consider myself a techie at all.

I'm playing with an HTC Desire HD right now and I really like it. HTC has definitely done enough tweaking to make it a superior experience, in my opinion, to other Froyo devices like the Samsung Galaxy S.

But I don't think I'd pay a premium for those improvements, because they're still relatively superficial. That's the issue.

[Jedibeeftrix]

"There is much anticipation that a Microsoft deal will be announced, and apparently this is boosting Nokia's share price. I still think this would be a mistake. I don't see how WP7 and MeeGo could coexist"

Absolutely agreed.

Android is a fine platform, but Nokia has been fighting to carve itself an independent and successful vertical stack for a long time and adopting android would be a wrecking ball through those efforts, likewise with WP7.

I also have serious doubts about the likelihood of Nokia adopting Intel processors, there whole development strategy revolves around keeping cross platform differences as minimal as possible.

http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/20...-tablet-phone/

[cheesemp]

I wouldn't want to be a Nokia executive. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't. Either way whatever they do it all seems a little too late. I stayed with Symbian last time (an N96) but really wished I hadn't - Switched to Android 8 months ago and won't go back.

They need to either launch meego now (with some method to making porting Android apps easy or otherwise no developer will bother) or switch to Android (with their own UI, Market, music player etc to set themselves apart and keep the stack while keeping costs low and giving an instant app boost).

[badass]

but for $4 billion you'd have thought that they could develop an entire OS and ecosystem from scratch, within 1 year.

One woman can make a baby in 9 months.
9 Women cannot make a baby in one month

[Spud1]

I doubt that a deal will be done, but, imo Nokia should do a deal with Microsoft, or at least attempt to. It would make both of them lots of money, and possibly allow nokia to be a smartphone competitor again.

Nokia make brilliant Series 40 phones. They have a perfect position in the marketplace, being nice and simple to use, absolutely rock solid in terms of performance/stability, and crucially cheap. They are market leaders in this sector (I think?) and as far as I know, have been for many many years.

However their smart phones are pants. They got away with it in the past because there was no real consumer competition - the "real windows mobile was targeted towards the business user, and that was it in terms of competition. These days there are two good, popular platforms (android and iOS) and a new "consumerized" Windows Mobile which has many merits but has yet to gain traction in the smartphone marketplace.

So personally, I think that Nokia (smartphone division) and Microsoft would make excellent partners, and it would really drive sales. Nokia could keep doing what they do best - that is capturing the lower end of the market and making rock solid hardware, while Microsoft could eliminate some minor competition and gain a huge boost from the Nokia brand, which is better known than HTC in most consumer circles.

I doubt it would happen, but on the face of it, its a brilliant idea.

[MSIC]

One woman can make a baby in 9 months.
9 Women cannot make a baby in one month

Astutely summarised!! Too many cooks....?

[Kamakazie]

Surely their vertical eco-system will be MeeGo?
It is perfectly suitable & adaptable for the phone / tablet / netbook combo that people are trying to exploit. Certainly more so than iOS / Blackberry OS / WP7 / Android and even WebOS to some extent (though we might see what HP have been up to on the netbook front next week).

Really all I want from a tablet / phone is decent management software & the ability to stream / transfer from my server over Wifi. None of which the current choices do a particularly good job of (if they do it at all).