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No, just no. Nokia did fail because they chose an OS that failed. They bet everything on Windows Mobile and lost. You can't say with a straight face that if th

No, just no. Nokia did fail because they chose an OS that failed. They bet everything on Windows Mobile and lost. You can't say with a straight face that if they choose Android instead that they would be in the same situation. Nokia could've had pro quality cameras that happen to be phones out long before any of the other Android phone makers. They blew it. Partnering with Microsoft was a huge mistake.

dogma1138 10y ago
If they have went with Android they would've been just another OEM, nothing guarantees that they would have outlived their fate and could be competitive with Samsung or LG today.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  I wonder; leaving the market surely gave Samsung a huge air gap to breath, but Samsung was seen a new strong player while Nokia, even not choosing MS would have got the "old giant" image. I believe they could have kept a very large chunk of said market, even with Samsung and Apple securing the top two positions.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Samsung only recently have gotten really strong, early Android days HTC was the king with Motorola being a close second. I'm not sure, while Microsoft didn't sell that well (or well not at all), they did ship quite a few of pretty high end devices, Nokia has probably shipped more high end devices than Samsung prior to the S6/7.
chipotle_coyote 10y ago
While this is probably true, it benefits immensely from hindsight. Even when Nokia decided not to move forward with MeeGo (which was an extremely defensible decision given how behind schedule both the OS and the products to run it on had become), they considered their services--particularly mapping--a major "crown jewel." They went with Windows Phone (n.b.: not Windows Mobile, which was the earlier OS) because Microsoft would partner with them and promote the Nokia products as "premium" Windows Phone devices while letting Nokia use their own services. That deal wouldn't have been possible with Google. While Android is open source, the Android branding is not, and to be able to market their device as Android--and get any support from Google--they would have had abandon their own services and use Google's. If I'd been in charge of things, would I have done that? No. I think Nokia should have gone with AOSP and put not only their own services but their own UX on it, along with Qt. I was at Nokia at 2010 and we were in the process of unifying Symbian and Meego on Qt, with the notion that you'd (mostly) just be able to recompile a Qt-based app to move between OSes; they could have kept that strategy while moving to Android. Then they'd be able to run Android apps natively and have a solid platform to move ahead on, while not leaving Nokia's existing community feeling like they'd been shut out. And, as others have pointed out, Nokia had some fantastic industrial design; the N8/N9, whose design language carried over into the Lumia line, was really the only phone design I've liked as much as the iPhone 4/4s design. But, Nokia's choice wasn't entirely bananas at the time. We all knew Windows Phone was late to the game, but initially it still got a lot of positive attention, a lot of love for its UX design, and it was Microsoft. I was arguably a skeptic, and even I wildly underestimated how hard the platform ended up cratering.

dogma1138 10y ago

If they have went with Android they would've been just another OEM, nothing guarantees that they would have outlived their fate and could be competitive with Samsung or LG today.

agumonkey 10y ago
I wonder; leaving the market surely gave Samsung a huge air gap to breath, but Samsung was seen a new strong player while Nokia, even not choosing MS would have got the "old giant" image. I believe they could have kept a very large chunk of said market, even with Samsung and Apple securing the top two positions.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Samsung only recently have gotten really strong, early Android days HTC was the king with Motorola being a close second. I'm not sure, while Microsoft didn't sell that well (or well not at all), they did ship quite a few of pretty high end devices, Nokia has probably shipped more high end devices than Samsung prior to the S6/7.

chipotle_coyote 10y ago

While this is probably true, it benefits immensely from hindsight. Even when Nokia decided not to move forward with MeeGo (which was an extremely defensible decision given how behind schedule both the OS and the products to run it on had become), they considered their services--particularly mapping--a major "crown jewel." They went with Windows Phone (n.b.: not Windows Mobile, which was the earlier OS) because Microsoft would partner with them and promote the Nokia products as "premium" Windows Phone devices while letting Nokia use their own services. That deal wouldn't have been possible with Google. While Android is open source, the Android branding is not, and to be able to market their device as Android--and get any support from Google--they would have had abandon their own services and use Google's. If I'd been in charge of things, would I have done that? No. I think Nokia should have gone with AOSP and put not only their own services but their own UX on it, along with Qt. I was at Nokia at 2010 and we were in the process of unifying Symbian and Meego on Qt, with the notion that you'd (mostly) just be able to recompile a Qt-based app to move between OSes; they could have kept that strategy while moving to Android. Then they'd be able to run Android apps natively and have a solid platform to move ahead on, while not leaving Nokia's existing community feeling like they'd been shut out. And, as others have pointed out, Nokia had some fantastic industrial design; the N8/N9, whose design language carried over into the Lumia line, was really the only phone design I've liked as much as the iPhone 4/4s design. But, Nokia's choice wasn't entirely bananas at the time. We all knew Windows Phone was late to the game, but initially it still got a lot of positive attention, a lot of love for its UX design, and it was Microsoft. I was arguably a skeptic, and even I wildly underestimated how hard the platform ended up cratering.