By The rumor mill is twirling at full speed this Monday morning as The Guardian reports that Nokia is producing an Android Phone in what they call “a strategic U-turn” for the world’s largest phone manufacturer. Nokia quickly and flatly denied the rumor, offering the following statement:
There is no truth to this story whatsoever. It is a well known fact that Symbian is our platform of choice for smartphones.
We didn’t think so.
One year ago Nokia purchased their partners stake in Symbian – their mobile operating system of choice – marking the birth of the Symbian foundation. At the time, the competitive pressures of Android, LiMo Foundation and of course the iPhone was threatening the future of Nokia’s dominance. So they promised to Open Souce the operating system and claimed the Symbian Foundation would work over the next 2 years to build their competing open source mobile OS.
It didn’t take but a month for the rumor mills to churn furiously, spawning claims that Android and Symbian would merge. While a possibly pleasant pipe dream it may have been, Dan Frommer from Silicon Alley Insider explained it best:
“Technical hurdle: You can’t just smoosh two operating systems together. Business hurdle: It’s hard to see either company giving up on their OS right now.”
At this point HTC and Samsung are the only major manufacturers to release Android Phones. Nokia launching an Android Phone would largely be seen as a white flag of defeat. It just isn’t going to happen. Nokia’s immediate and concrete statement negating the rumor that they have an Android Phone in development isn’t likely a cover up to keep their plans quiet – Nokia is still working diligently to bring an Open Source Symbian product to the masses. But it will take time.
Nokia sees the success Google is enjoying with Android. They aren’t too happy with the new competition from Google and they aren’t shy about it either – remember what they said at the N97 Announcement?
Don’t count Nokia out. They aren’t just an industry giant, they are the #1 mobile phone manufacturer in the world. If Palm can go from a limping sloth to the most buzzworthy behemoth overnight, imagine what Nokia has the potential to accomplish. They are taking their time. They are plotting, planning and developing in the background. They have an Open Source project in the works that won’t launch for quite a long time… but one thing is for sure:
Nokia isn’t making an Android Phone.
Is that at their own peril? Not at all… because if and when they decide turning on the Android faucet is necessary, they have the power to create quite an immediate flood. While I continue to say that competition is good, I can’t deny that seeing a Nokia Android phone would be pretty amazing. But as long as Symbian Foundation’s Open Source Mobile OS alive and well… it ain’t gonna happen.
Symbian is getting old, you just know they have a couple of guys in one of the engineering shops in the back playing with porting some android phones.
symbian is stupid what is even more stupid is the samsung ui and winmo i think all these people should turn their phones to android
i was kinda like no way nokia would really do that but hey glass half full we know theyre will be 19 android these year at lease 10 of them wont be occupied by low end spec less phones that look almost exactly the same but each with its unique dis functionality
Competition is good! :D
I have always liked Symbian phones, they are good solid hardware (at least the ones I’ve owned), there are a metric boatload of apps out there for it, and the OS is very stable.
As for Palm, the Pre is a wonderful piece of hardware. But what are the people who spent $100s going to do when their Pre wears out and the next OS for Palm is Wind Mobile? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used the Palm OS and I like it too, but it’s going away.
Well competition is good for the market, and even better for the consumer. :D
I quickly upgrade my phone from a Nokia to the G1 without hesitation. Symbian & Windows mobile platforms are in the dark ages compared to Android
It’s not surprising, but unfortunate. Symbian has never gotten a lot of attention, it’s very stable and has a long line of third party apps, but no one has ever bragged or been proud about having a symbian phone, unlike the iPhone/Pre/Android.
Nokia’s problem was that Sony Ericsson had the far better Symbian platform with ‘UIQ’. UIQ was a feature rich platform touch-screen platform that Android still cannot match (nor the Iphone for that matter). Real multitasking (don’t talk to me about my mp3’s stuttering when I browse the web on my G1), great battery life, compatibility with all bluetooth standards, syncml, plus real cut and paste (not just from specific fields like Android). I could go on, lol.
If Sony Ericsson had the mountains of cash that Google, Apple and Nokia have, things might be very different now…
@Svenners
mp3s stuttering while browsing !!! never happened to me buddy
never had an mp3 stutter…one of the things i love about the g1 is being able to stream netcasts while browsing the web then take a call in the middle of it with no problems
Nokia is not going to take a U-Turn to Antroid as they have already invested too much in Symbian Foundation.. But they must think switching to Android if they want to dominate the smartphone market . They believe in driving straight and thats not always right..
@Maj @Jeff, Really? No stuttering? I get it all the time, with barely any services running on my G1. Grrrrrrr.
If I could work out why it happens to me, I’d be a happy bunny.
Shame, because Nokia phones were once good, and now are just mediocre…
What is need is a Nokia phone spec, android os, HTC interface concept with and HD OLED 3.5 screen….