Handset manufacturer INQ's CEO Frank Meehan has told TechRadar that he believes Nokia didn't have a choice when it came to jumping into bed with Microsoft.
The Windows Phone 7 announcement may have surprised the Nokia stalwarts that still believed Symbian was the long term future for the Finnish firm, but Meehan thinks it was a simple choice, despite the fact Microsoft's platform is still very nascent:
"They didn't have a choice. They now have to hunker down and get on with it. The only issue is that you've got camps in both Finland and Seattle and they're quite far away from each other, in terms of ease of collaboration, but I think that's something [Stephen Elop, Nokia's CEO] can get past easily."
Paranoid Android
Meehan also stated that he thinks Nokia joining the Android ecosystem would have been the wrong choice, despite the obvious strength of the platform:
"Windows is a better fit for Nokia because Microsoft will put so much effort into it to make it a success for them. Microsoft has a lot of talented coders in Seattle and Nokia's got some talented distribution and marketing people, so it sounds like a perfect match.
"If you had the N8 with some good software it would be a great device. However, Android is still a very powerful platform: it's about [brands] recognising the true power of what Google can do.
"Google wants you to innovate. Most vendors don't get the software world and they try to rehash existing software into some horrible mash-up. But it's all about creating something new using the tools that these companies are giving you."
Lip service
Meehan also accused the current manufacturers of Windows Phone 7 devices of paying 'lip service' to Microsoft and not really pushing back with innovative designs of their own, and believes that Nokia will have to do something different:
"[Nokia] needs to come out with someone completely new – consumers will have forgotten about this announcement next week, they don't care.
"WP7 is actually quite a good platform. Consumers didn't really understand what it's all about. Nokia's quite good at thinking about what the consumer wants and communicating it. They just haven't had the software to do that."
