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Sometimes you have to wonder what a company is thinking. Granted Microsoft has never been known as altruistic when dealing with other companies. Some might even call it predatory but what is about to happen with Nokia is just cold. By announcing Windows Phone 8 and stating that it will not run on any current Windows Phone hardware, Microsoft has hurt its partners like HTC who were producing Microsoft devices and especially Nokia.
Nokia has been struggling for the past few years as people have moved from feature phones, Nokia’s bread and butter, to smartphones. The Huffington Post reported last November that Nokia would be laying off 17,000 workers worldwide by 2013. This from a company that was once the leading phone maker in the world.
Nokia then bet its future on Microsoft. In 2011 it decided to Microsoft Windows Phone as its main mobile operating system and basically banked its survival on its Lumia line of Windows Phone 7 smartphones. After Microsoft’s announcement that its new mobile operating system won’t work on older devices, Bloomberg announced that Nokia’s stock price dropped to a 16 year low. Ouch.
Who wants to buy a replacement phone that will outdated within a few months? Granted that is always an issue with Android phones but for most, a newer phone can be upgraded to the newest Android operating system. Not so with Windows Phones. So why waste money on purchasing a new Nokia Lumia 900 when you can wait a few months for a phone that will be exponentially better?
That means that Nokia’s woes will only get worse. It has a stockpile of phones whose sales will probably fall off dramatically further pushing the company into ruin. PC Magazine has questioned whether Microsoft’s latest announcement is part of a plan to purchase Nokia once it is in shambles.
At the very least, it should give HTC and Samsung pause. Both companies have Windows Phone 7 handsets on the market and have announced that they will produce Windows Phone 8 handsets. HTC and Samsung, unlike Nokia, do produce handsets with Android operating systems. Still while both aren’t dependent on their Windows Phone 7 sales, they should still be pretty ticked off that Microsoft has effectively ruined any further sales of their Windows Phone 7 handsets.
While the Android ecosystem might be fragmented, Google is not deliberately undercutting its partner manufacturers. Microsoft is and its, in effect, killing off its Windows Phone 7 business. Who wants to buy a phone based on an operating system that can’t seem to survive even 6 months without complete obsolescence?
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