Nokia has been exclusively Windows Phone for its smartphones, but it may have tested Android devices.
In public, Nokia executives have said in the past they have been "very happy" with the deal they struck with Microsoft in 2011 that would see the company exclusively use the Windows Phone operating system for their smartphone products. Now a report from The New York Times claims, via unnamed sources, that a secret Nokia team was working on getting its Lumia smartphones to run Google"s Android OS for a number of months.
The report claims that Microsoft was aware of the secret Lumia Android project but that did not factor into the company"s recent talks with Nokia. Those discussions resulted in a plan that will put the company"s Devices and Services unit under Microsoft"s control. However, the report does hint that the Nokia Android team didn"t encounter too many problems in switching Lumia devices away from Windows Phone. Neither Microsoft nor Nokia would comment on today"s New York Times story.
The idea that Nokia could have had a "Plan B" to switch to Android is one that the company itself has tried to dismiss in previous statements. As recently as July, Nokia"s now former CEO Stephen Elop said that the company didn"t want to get involved in making Android phones because it saw that "one company has essentially now become the dominant player." That player is, of course, Samsung, who has had huge success with its Galaxy line of products.
Source: New York Times