Mobile

Nokia Did Right By Choosing Windows Phone Over Android

Vamien McKalin email: v.mckalin@mobilenapps.com

After coming across reports of Samsung's continuous dominance of Android and how much Google is feeling threatened, it became abundantly clear that Nokia made the right decision in choosing Windows Phone over Google's own mobile operating system.

Samsung at the moment holds nearly 50 percent market share in the Android ecosystem, the company also shipped over 212 million Android based smartphone units last year. Its closest competitor, HTC, could only ship 32 million, a true sign of Samsung's dominance. If Nokia had entered the market, the company would have likely found itself in a similar position to HTC and others, or even worse.

Google no longer controls Android in its current situation, it's all Samsung, which means whatever decisions Samsung makes in the future will be critical to Android's overall success. Right now, that successful future is looking dim; as Samsung prepares to invest heavily in Tizen-based smartphones. It has been long rumored that Samsung is looking to break its reliance on Android, and the company's joint venture with Intel on the Tizen platform is an indication that Samsung is serious.

Samsung will eventually break away from Android and bring all its fans and developers with it. It's not too difficult when you sit back and take a careful look at things. If Samsung continues the trend of launching powerful hardware with innovative features that run on Tizen OS, fans will follow, and so will developers. And, if that happens, Google would be left trying very hard to pick up the pieces of its broken platform.

After looking into what might happen, do you think Nokia made the wrong decision by joining forces with Microsoft? If HTC and Motorola are failing badly to break Samsung's hold on the market, what makes you think Nokia's chance would have been any better? For a company that was looking to kick the bucket earlier than it should, it needed room to grow, and only Windows Phone provided that option.

Currently, Nokia is the top dog in the Windows Phone market with over 70 percent share. There's a bit of irony here because just as Samsung is dominating with Android, Nokia is dominating Windows Phone sales, leaving competitors (including Samsung) scraping the bottom of the barrel. We doubt Microsoft would like this very much, so expect a similar to reaction towards Nokia in the future like the one from Google to Samsung.

In the end, it is better for Nokia to be cannibalizing a small market while making a profit, than being in a huge market but being cannibalized by a bigger fish and not making a profit. Many might not want to see or agree with Nokia's decision, but the Finnish giant did right, and it is slowly paying off.

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