Back in 2011, when Nokia chose Windows Phone for the platform for the next generation of devices, it was a huge shift for the company as they were dropping Symbian in favor of the Redmond OS. In an ‘Ask me Anything’ session, Stephen Elop gave a few more details about the transition into the world of Windows.
When asked, “Hi Stephen, do you think that Nokia with Android is a good idea?”, Elop responded:
When we made the decision to focus on Windows Phone back in 2011, we were very concerned that a decision to pursue Android would put us on a collision course with Samsung, who already had established a head of steam around Android. That was the right decision, as we have seen virtually all other OEMs from those days pushed to the side. Today, we are using AOSP to attack a specific market opportunity, but we are being thoughtful to do it in a way that accrues benefit to Microsoft and to Lumia.
It’s quite clear that Nokia feared a clash with Samsung and its Galaxy line of devices that were quickly taking the position as the dominant player in the Android arena. Seeing how HTC continues to struggle in this area, it would seem that making a run for Windows Phone was the right move.
Nokia was able to establish itself as the dominant player in the Windows Phone camp and was able to avoid a costly battle with Samsung. Sure, Samsung may have pushed Nokia away from Android but for Microsoft and Windows Phone, this was a huge win.
As for why they dumped Symbian, Elop said the following:
Now that there is a lot of emotion around some of the hard decisions that we had to make. Back in late 2010 and 2011, we carefully assessed the state of the internal Nokia operating system efforts. Unfortunately, we could not see a way that Symbian could be brought to a competitive level with, for example, the iPhone that had shipped THREE years earlier! And the Meego effort was significantly delayed and did not have the promise of a broad enough portfolio soon enough. We had to make a forceful decision to give Nokia the chance to compete again
Many thought that Meego would have been the natural move for Nokia as it would have been in control of the OS, unlike Windows Phone that is controlled by Microsoft. But, if Meego was that far delayed, it would have been a disastrous move as the company tried to innovate on hardware and software, so they outsourced the OS to Microsoft and focused on innovative hardware like the Lumia 1020.
Source and Image Credit: Nokia