Nokia to Announce Strategy Shift for its Handsets Next Week

Published on: 1st Jan 1970: 1:33am

­Nokia has hinted at a possible shift in its handset strategy that could see it embracing an alternative to its Symbian and MeeGo operating systems for future handsets. Speaking at the company's financial results, Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop said that "Nokia must compete on an ecosystem-to-ecosystem basis. In addition to great devices, we must build, catalyze, and/or join a competitive ecosystem."

The comment about joining up with another platform has sparked a flurry of speculation, which has been heightened by news that the company will announce a "strategy shift" in an investor presentation next Friday (11th Feb).

Although Nokia's CEO is an ex-Microsoft man and only joined the company last year, most of the expectation is that the company may announce a deal to develop Android based smartphones. The company has been trying to push its Symbian platform and has an internal culture which leans towards open-source options. Developing for Windows Phone 7 could lead to some key developers being uncomfortable with the direction the company is taking, at a critical stage in its fightback against other smartphone manufacturers.

Microsoft also maintains a tighter control over how its OS is deployed in smartphones, offering Nokia more limited options for personalising its handsets and making its products standout from the crowd. The more relaxed Android OS would still permit Nokia to embed support for its NAVTEQ mapping subsidiary instead of relying on Google's own maps service. Such a move would usually mean that Nokia cannot use the "Powered by Google" logo, but the firm is unlikely to be particularly concerned about that.

Speculation about the "strategy shift" is likely to get intense in the run up to the investor presentation.

 

Tags: [symbian]  [nokia]  [meego]  [windows phone 7]  [stephen elop]  [microsoft]  [windows phone]