Why Nokia Finally Chose Android as its OS

The story of Nokia and Android will remain as the one to remember in the history of mobile phones. From rejection to a partnership, their relationship has come full circle. If you are not familiar with the story, read on to find out what happened almost a decade ago between Nokia and Android, as well as why Nokia finally chose Android as its OS. 

Nokia rejects Android

To fully grasp the story, we have to go back to 2005 when Nokia decided to change their operating system. In 2005, smartphones started making their way into people’s pockets and Nokia just could not keep up with their Symbian OS.

In 2010, Nokia hired Stephen Elop from Microsoft and was finally ready to make its choice. Both Android and Windows Phone negotiated with Nokia in hopes of becoming their new OS, and somewhat surprisingly, Nokia chose Windows Phone. Many people found this shocking and wondered why Nokia made that decision. 

Why did they do this? 

There are many different opinions about why Nokia rejected Android a decade ago.

Many people believe that all of this was a conspiracy by Microsoft. However, that is difficult to believe as Stephen Elop did not make this decision alone. There were other execs, like Anssi Vanjoki, who completely agreed with him. Other people believe that Nokia feared Samsung’s partnership with Android and that it would dominate the Android market. At the time, this might have been a serious threat to Elop and it might have been the reason he decided to go with Microsoft.

Was it a mistake?

In 2013, Microsoft bought Nokia’s mobile business for $7.6 billion. Only three years after, their partnership was over and more than 8000 people lost their jobs because of it. It turned out that Nokia and Microsoft did not work well together, just as the public had predicted.

Some believe that the deal was doomed from the start and that they would not be able to compete with Apple and Google.

The general opinion was that Nokia had made a huge mistake by rejecting Android. 

Their partnership with Android 

Like we said, in 2016, the situation completely changed. Things didn’t work out between Microsoft and Nokia and Microsoft sold its business to HMD. HMD was a new company, which was, not surprisingly, founded by ex-Nokians. This time around, Nokia choose Android and debuted their three new smartphones: Nokia 3, Nokia 5, and Nokia 6. Android lovers were thrilled by this partnership and the three smartphones did better than Nokia X did years ago. The story of Nokia and Android did get its happy ending, but it is a great reminder of how difficult it is to make things work if you do not choose what is best for you.