Nokia Was Working On New Android Phone Before Microsoft Buyout Deal

Nokia and Microsoft boned into a partnership in February 2011, and the outcome was for the Windows Phone to become the flagship OS for Nokia devices. However, Nokia took a lot of criticism of putting its faith in Microsoft’s hand.

However, Nokia had another plan according to a source – Android. A source says that Nokia had the Android OS running much before the negotiations with Microsoft went underway for its mobile business sector.

Here’s the excerpt from Nick Wingfield of The New York Times:

“Before Microsoft reached a deal to buy Nokia’s phone business, there was a possibility that Nokia could have switched its smartphones to Google’s Android operating system sometime after late 2014.
And now, it is clear that a Nokia Android phone was more than a possibility. It was real. A team within Nokia had Android up and running on the company’s Lumia handsets well before Microsoft and Nokia began negotiating Microsoft’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone and services business, according to two people briefed on the effort who declined to be identified because the project was confidential. “

What this means is that Nokia was already testing an Android device or two in case it selected the option to end the partnership with Microsoft at the end of 2014. Nick says that executives at Microsoft knew about the project, but that didn’t affect the negotiations.

So what about a Nokia running an Android? It doesn’t seem to be happening as Microsoft has announced $7 billion investment for the mobile phone and service business.

 The Verge also reports that Microsoft was experimenting with a ‘Surface Phone’ project some time ago.

So what do you think? Would Android Nokia phones performed much better than its Windows counterparts?