It has been a long frustration of mine that Nokia, king of the hill just a few years ago refused to create Android handsets. Nokia really changed the game by putting an intuitive OS into reliable old school bar phones.
The decision and stubbornness involved with the decision to not switch over to Android when things went touchscreen ultimately lead to their demise and sell off to Microsoft.
They made one last push with Microsoft clout, Windows OS and a huge campaign regarding the superiority of their cameras, but it was not enough to make a dent in the Android steam strain. Ultimately, for Nokia it was time to sell.
Now fresh off the completion of the sale, an interesting twist comes about as Microsoft has decided to release their first handset with Android. Flying in the face of all logic and in direct competition with their Windows OS. Or is it? The name of the game here is selling handsets. Now that Microsoft owns Nokia, they are making the hard decision that Nokia did not make — sell handsets with Android.
Selling handsets produces revenue in more ways than one. The first is the obvious revenue from the sale of the product itself, but ultimately the goal is to keep people tied into Microsoft networks and services. Given the wide variety of competing services, this is very difficult if you can not get the service in front of people on a constant basis. Selling Android handsets with Microsoft services is one way to do it, and it has been confirmed that the Android phones released by Microsoft will have Microsoft product apps installed by default.
While many of us should be able to remove these apps fairly easily, the huge majority of consumers will either not know how or will not be bothered with the removal. Thus owners of these mobiles will always have Microsoft service apps in front of them. Not the least of which is Nokia Store, an app store in direct competition with Google Play.
According to the BBC:
“The Nokia X2 can run the bigger library of Android apps, but unless users hack the device they can only browse available software via the Nokia Store – which excludes some programs – rather than the more fully-stocked Google Play.”
The phone to be released has been christened “Nokia X2”. We have done a short Nokia X2 specification review here.
The passing off of Nokia to Microsoft and Microsoft making an Android phone is a period to remember for fans of mobile history. Feel free to discuss this move in the comments, or on the Chinaphonearena thread.
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