Yes, Nokia Should Have Chosen Android, Not Windows Phone (Premium)

Many Nokia fans have long complained that Stephen Elop's decision to back Windows phone over Android was a strategic mistake that destroyed the company. I, meanwhile, had argued otherwise.

Turns out we were both wrong. Yes, Nokia should have chosen Android over Windows phone back in 2011. But not for the reasons that those Nokia fans voiced.

Back in 2013, I argued that Nokia was right to choose Windows phone. And I was right to do so, given the information we had at the time. Nokia chose Windows phone, we were told, because Microsoft granted the firm special status among its licensees. They collaborated with Microsoft on the evolution of the platform, which provided Nokia with the control over its own destiny that it required.

"What Nokia gets that is unique on Windows Phone is an inroad into actual platform design and development," I wrote at the time. "It is essentially co-creating Windows Phone, and helping to determine where this platform goes next. It is pushing its own technologies---especially the HERE location apps and services---right into the OS itself, something that is not possible for other Windows Phone partners, nor for those who support Android. It’s a way to one-up the openness of Android, if you will, without all the nasty forkiness."

I also argued at that time that had Nokia adopted Android then, it simply would have been yet another Android handset maker, a small fish in a big pond. It would have lost its uniqueness and its natural advantages. And when you combine that with its manufacturing overhead---a key contributor to its demise---it would have disappeared even more quickly than it did.

"Had Nokia adopted Android instead of Windows Phone, it wouldn’t have been able to benefit the wider Android ecosystem as it can with Windows Phone, and it would have effectively had to start over with yet another Android spin-off, similar to what Samsung and Amazon have done, rather than just help improve the actual platform," I explained. "More problematically, it would have been a small player in a big market, more akin to HTC or LG than to Samsung. In Windows Phone, Nokia is the king."

But now, we have new information, courtesy of a Finnish book about Stephen Elop's years at Nokia which was just translated, poorly, to English. And based on a source who was present at meetings between Google and Nokia ahead of Elop's announcement about adopting Windows phone, a different story emerges.

And, yes, this changes everything.

"Google offered Nokia, among other things, plenty of say in choosing the direction of Android development," the book notes. "By directing Android development to align with its own competitive goals, Nokia would gain some advantage, even if the changes would be available for everyone at the same time. Now Nokia was interested."

In other words, Google was willing to provide Nokia with the same ability to drive the evolution of Android as Microsoft was with Windows phone.

"According ...