Whilst at the front of the race they took their eye off for a little distraction called Symbian. The problem there was the complete lack of control over the UI. Symbian forked their UI for phone and tablet, and phone producers forked their own UIs again (UIQ, Series 60,80,90), making upgrading the existing UI centrally practically impossible. The only option was to start from scratch... oops. The committee appears to have made a big deal out of binary compatibility. Yet with today's consumer, that is not important on a smart phone, when we want to get apps from a store.
Nokia looked up and has realised it's now running on a different track to everyone else - the finish line moved and they can't catch up (3 years to get from the old UI's, and we've still not got shiny new Symbian in mass market products). Time to get into the current race.
The problem with branching Android, is that it puts them back in exactly the same sort of situation they were in when they backed Symbian. By going with Microsoft they have moved to a much more controlled system. Microsoft have buckets of experience with smart phones, and I believe that WM7 will be the XP of mobile. Let's just hope they don't Vista it.
Whilst at the front of the race they took their eye off for a little distraction called Symbian. The problem there was the complete lack of control over the UI. Symbian forked their UI for phone and tablet, and phone producers forked their own UIs again (UIQ, Series 60,80,90), making upgrading the existing UI centrally practically impossible. The only option was to start from scratch... oops. The committee appears to have made a big deal out of binary compatibility. Yet with today's consumer, that is not important on a smart phone, when we want to get apps from a store.
Nokia looked up and has realised it's now running on a different track to everyone else - the finish line moved and they can't catch up (3 years to get from the old UI's, and we've still not got shiny new Symbian in mass market products). Time to get into the current race.
The problem with branching Android, is that it puts them back in exactly the same sort of situation they were in when they backed Symbian. By going with Microsoft they have moved to a much more controlled system. Microsoft have buckets of experience with smart phones, and I believe that WM7 will be the XP of mobile. Let's just hope they don't Vista it.