A month ago Nokia announced its Nokia X product line which runs Android as its operating system. This is an interesting development because nobody expected Nokia to turn to Android — especially not now, when it’s about to be taken over by Microsoft after gambling (and losing) its independent existence on Windows Phone.

I have a theory about the Nokia X that I’d like to share with you. It may be nonsense, but it fits the currently available facts and makes sense, so it could be true.

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A few more thoughts on Nokisoft.

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OK, so the deal is done. Nokia partners with Microsoft and trades in MeeGo for Windows Phone 7, I failed my test as a mobile analyst, and 2011 will make 2010 look like child’s play when it comes to disruption. Here’s a quick reaction to those aspects I find most interesting. No claim to completeness here.

For web developers this is bad news. Windows Phone 7 has the worst default browser of all modern smartphone OSs: IE7 (though, in fairness, Microsoft is working on an IE9 port). MeeGo was supposed to have a Gecko-based default browser, just as its precursor Maemo did.

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This Friday Nokia will hold a strategy and financial briefing in London, with major announcements about operating systems being expected. This will impact the mobile browser market, so it’s important to web developers. A bit of background is in order.

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For those who follow the mobile market:

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Ewan MacLeod is spot on:

It’s important to recognise that whilst most of the Western media reckons Nokia is completely screwed, this is also not the case.

The company continues to ship a million handsets a day (or thereabouts) and each one of those devices contributes a tiny bit of profit along with a heck of a lot of cash throughput that keeps bankers smiling very, very widely.

Believe it or not, folk actually queued for the N8. Just not in San Francisco or London. So it might as well not have happened as far as the West is concerned.

Sadly the reality is that ... well ... perception is reality. It’s 0% reality and 100% perception in the case of Nokia from the point of view of the West.

Last week Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (OPK for short) was replaced by the first non-Finn to lead the company, Stephen Elop, head of Microsoft’s business division (mainly Office). This is big news that might change Nokia’s perception as well as its strategy.

OPK’s tenure as Nokia chief was not lucky. Barely in office he was confronted with the launch of the iPhone, and this issue overshadowed the rest of his career. For the full story of OPK, see, as always, Tomi Ahonen.

After four years of doing little except producing one of the worst touchscreen phones in history, the N97, Nokia was perceived as a loser, and pressure on OPK to resign was growing. Last Friday things came to a head when Elop’s anointment as his successor was announced.

(This article has been translated into Spanish.)

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Some updates on a few developing stories in the mobile space.

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Yesterday evening I returned from my fourth foreign trip this year. This time I went to the Mobile World Congress, the annual Barcelona-based get-together of the mobile industry, and I can tell you, it’s something else.

This post gives an overview of announcements by mobile players that might be of interest to web developers. There’s an incredible lot of it, too, because every single major mobile player except Apple feels that MWC is the ultimate forum for major announcements.

If you know of more news, or have links to additional information, please leave a comment.

I was there because Vodafone had invited me to sit on a panel in a technical “embedded conference” about W3C Widgets and related technologies. The concept can use some fine-tuning; I’m hoping to do some of that in the future. I was there mainly to stress that the mobile browser situation is not as simple as it looks. THERE IS NO WEBKIT ON MOBILE!
While I was at it I also invented guerilla browser testing.

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