USA – According to Niklas Savander, executive vice president of services and software at Nokia, Google Android isn’t yet ready for Nokia to make an assessment on. “A platform has three to four million lines of code” Savander told SFGate.com. “When Android has that many lines, we’ll make an assessment. Until then it’s just an announcement”.
That might sound a bit biting, though I’m sure it isn’t meant to.Savander is serious about software, it’s his business. The number of handsets running the software he’s responsible for run into the
hundreds of millions so you can understand his caution.
There was a lot of speculation earlier this week about Nokia and Linux when a remark picked up at a conference was published out of context, sparking a flurry of reporting on Nokia dumping Symbian for Linux (not the case). That said, Nokia isn’t tied to one single platform, despite the obvious connection with Symbian. It’s still open enough to explore other operating systems and with Linux already in the mix for the
Internet tablets, it’s hard to see Nokia ruling out other possible options. Even Android.
One area Savander is fully behind though is the range of software and services currently in the works at Nokia. He sees them as playing a vital role in helping the company’s standing in the US market. But, he also said it comes down to executing on those ideas and showing people that Nokia is for real.
He also sees the US market as a “show-me market” and that users and carriers there “aren’t convinced until they see it”. He’s not just referring to Android in that instance, but also the onslaught of location-based services and other software and services Nokia is rolling out over the coming months.
Looks like it’s time to start showing. What do you think?
Photo by kowitz