Nokia, which was once the number one mobile phone manufacturer on the planet, isn’t exactly at the top of food chain anymore. Back in early 2011, the Finnish company announced that they would be getting rid of Symbian, their previous operating system, and partnering up with Microsoft by using the Windows Phone OS.
Over a year later and they’re still struggling to gain market share. DailyFinance questioned if going with Windows Phone OS was the greatest idea. Clearly, Android is doing tremendously well and the two mobile operating systems to watch out for are from Google and Apple.
“Should it have gone with Android? After all, smartphones made by Samsung, LG, Huawei, and Motorola that run the Android OS together have grabbed more than half of the world’s smartphone OS market share by the end of 2011, according to market research firm Gartner. Apple’s iOS, running iPhones, was in second place with 23.8%. Windows Phone was in sixth place.”
The partnership is still fairly new, however, in a World dominated by a massive amount of Android powered phones and a few highly coveted iPhones, it’s going to remain very difficult to compete. Just ask BlackBerry who’s failed to innovate and something that Nokia can hopefully learn from.
“So it appears that the choice of Nokia’s smartphone operating system may have been made not because of any technical advantage — or even market-share advantage — that the Windows Phone OS may have had over Android, but because the Finnish phone maker was just afraid of having its product become another undifferentiated Android-running mobile device in a vast sea of the same.”
They make a good point. The interface on Windows Phone OS for example is clearly different from Android or iOS and a major differentiator. But does that make it a better phone? That’s for the consumers to decide.
Do you have a Nokia smartphone and if so, how are you liking Windows Phone OS?