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Comment by davros | Hacker News Reader

I think Nokia wants to be a major player in the WP7 ecosystem rather than a minor player in the Android ecosystem. In an Android/Apple 'duopoly' every hardware maker except Apple has basically the same OS/app offering and Nokia would be playing catch-up against established android offerings - that is very scary to Nokia. The alternative is to partner with Microsoft and aim to be a major player in a 'third way' ecosystem. Really this isn't about how many ecosystems, its about the size of Nokia's slice of the ecosystem they chose. So they're taking the risk that WP7 will become a viable platform over the risk that they'd be a bit player in an Android world.

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I heard that a lot, but - I'm not sure that I agree. There are other manufacturers of WP7 handsets already. Nokia needs to set itself apart, and I have troubles understanding how.

WP7 phones have rather tight hardware requirements [1] that to a degree influence the general handset. I fail yet to see how Nokia can top that (Maybe coming up with a better Camera/Zeiss optic. Maybe putting quite a lot more power in the handset - but the first option would be more for a niche imo and the second would cut into margins if you want to be competitive).

Sure, it's all just speculation until we see their first devices. But at this point I remain unconvinced that Nokia can differ enough to dominate the WP7 platform.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7#Hardware

Nokia are able to customise Windows Phone 7 when other OEMs can't, and will presumably be the preferred partner when developing new versions. This might seem minor, but it isn't: think of the root cause of HTC's Android marketshare.

There are plenty of other perks MS can offer Nokia too. Windows Phone 7 ads that prominently show Nokia phones being the most obvious. This is likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars in its own.

I suspect Nokia will continue MeeGo development in case the Windows deal fails, so they have an alternative platform to fall back on. The potential for Android-compatible MeeGo handsets being rolled out at a moment's notice should keep MS in check.

Have you heard the expression "It's better to have a piece of a bigger pie, than to have a small pie"?

Nokia wouldn't be a minor player in the Android ecosystem. That's ridiculous. If they executed quickly and release some good Android phones within a year, they'd become relevant again. With their power, they could even beat Samsung, which is going to become the biggest Android phone manufacturer.

Of course they'd still need to compete well hardware wise. This decision seems to me like they need software differentiation because they know they can't compete well enough on hardware anymore.

By the time Nokia makes a few WP7 phones and sells them, Samsung will sell a lot more Android phones. I expect Samsung to become the #1 phone manufacturer within 2-3 years. This won't happen only because Samsung is growing, but because Nokia will sell a lot less Symbian units, due to competition in the mid and low end from Asian manufacturers.

One problem with this logic: they're expected to ship in late 2011 at the earliest. By that time, other manufacturers will have had WP7 phones out for a year, which is a pretty long time in this space. They're late entrants to a crowded field either way.

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