Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, went all-in during the early part of 2011 when he announced that his company would drop its proprietary smartphone operating system and switch to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform for all of its mobile devices.
Since then, Nokia has made a remarkable comeback, but there may be more in store for the re- imaging of Nokia because Elop hinted strongly yesterday that tablets may be in the very near future from the Finnish electronics manufacturer.
Expansion plans
Stephen Elop spoke at a press conference held in Sydney, Australia yesterday and told reporters that Nokia will be moving to expand its portfolio of products, and high on the consideration list are Microsoft Windows tablets:
Elop remarked:
“It is the case that in the months and years ahead, you will see us broaden out the portfolio, which means pushing to lower and lower price points, in some cases smaller form factors and so forth.
“We haven’t announced tablets at this point, but it is something we are clearly looking at very closely. We are studying very closely the market right now as Microsoft has introduced the Surface tablet, so we are trying to learn from that and understand what the right way to participate would be and at what point in time.”
Keeping the door open
While Elop is very much in the camp of Microsoft, and understands that an ecosystem based upon one operating system would be ideal, but he didn’t totally reject the idea of Nokia tablets running Android OS:
“We would consider any option… It is important to note that the opportunity for companionship is something that any user is looking for.
"So, when you think about the Lumia 920, running on Windows phone, having a Windows tablet or PC or Xbox is something that will give us the opportunity to have a pretty integrated experience. Our first focus on what we look at is clearly in the Microsoft side.
“But we have made no decision or announced [anything].”
Avoiding Android
Although Elop hedged his bets by not wholeheartedly backing Windows as its preferred operating system for future Nokia tablets, he did give away a hint that his decision to steer away from Android, for its Lumia smartphone line, was the right choice:
“On the Android side, we were very worried that we would be entering Android late relative to everyone else in the industry, that perhaps one vendor was already well on the road to being the dominant Android vendor at the expense of everyone else.”
Via Financial Review
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/nokia-s-ceo-hints-strongly-at-entering-the-tablet-business-windows-or-android?cid=roadrunner