Nokia says Google alliance participation "not ruled out at all"

It may have downplayed the significance of Google's Open Handset Alliance and Android OS yesterday, but it seems that Nokia is singing a slightly different tune today, with Reuters now reporting that the company hasn't completely closed the door on taking part in the alliance. Specifically, Nokia spokesman Kari Tuutti said, "It's not ruled out at all," adding that, "If we would see this as beneficial we would think about taking part in it." Tuutti then went on to say that "We should never close any doors." Of course, that's still a long way from actually jumping on board, which seems to remain a fairly unlikely proposition, "open doors" aside.

[John @ Nov 6th 2007 1:04PM]

So basically, they're saying, no we don't want any part of it, but we don't want to look stupid if we eventually are forced to change our minds.

[John P @ Nov 6th 2007 1:14PM]

They're leaving their doors open, so to speak.

[Andir3.0 @ Nov 6th 2007 2:06PM]

Nokia is opening their doors. Now if we can only get Microsoft to open their Windows.

[Frankenstein Black @ Nov 6th 2007 6:01PM]

“Resistance is Futile!”

[Rob @ Nov 6th 2007 1:19PM]

Not shocking. Nokia has been hedging with this sort of thing. The N770, N800, and N810 while products, seem to be more for developing the expertise in-house on a small linux platform.

[tetronic @ Nov 6th 2007 1:45PM]

Too bad Nokia is too tied down to Symbian. I personally dislike the system since it's really slow. Hopefully Android can speed it up for a future Nokia phone on some good hardware. Nokia, spend it on the hardware instead of hiring phone designers.

[Jon @ Nov 6th 2007 1:58PM]

They have devices that operates on Linux.

Their newer S60 devices are pretty quick and because of faster processors and increasing amount of RAM.

[Andy S. @ Nov 6th 2007 2:18PM]

"Their newer S60 devices are pretty quick and because of faster processors and increasing amount of RAM."

In other words, they mitigate the apparent problem of slow-ass, poorly-written software by throwing more hardware at it.

You know, like we do with Windows at every new release.

DO NOT WANT.

[AD @ Nov 6th 2007 2:55PM]

It's not the OS. Nokia have a policy of keeping down the CPU speed to prolong battery life. But I agree with you, the result can to far too sluggish for my taste as well.

[poorlilboy @ Nov 8th 2007 1:51AM]

Well if you thought Nokia's Symbian S60 was slow, it's due to the hardware. Android's minimum hardware requirements are already higher than what Nokia puts on some of their S60 phones.

The older S60's ran on 104-133MHz processors and like 4-10MB internal memory.

Compare those two with the wasteful Windows Mobile and you'll learn to appreciate Symbian S60 and it's multi-tasking capabilities. Android on a future Nokia tablet seems very plausible.

[sean @ Nov 6th 2007 3:32PM]

nokia - android = none of my money

[Peter Pants @ Nov 6th 2007 4:09PM]

If NOKIA jumps into Android, then they are basically saying to their software engineers "go find another job".. who knows maybe Google will be hiring.

I'm sure they have an entire infrastructure of engineers that would all need to be reassigned. I mean imagine the going-away party costs that would have to be considered; far too much for one Kari Tuutti to know at this stage of the game.

[Lev @ Nov 6th 2007 4:35PM]

Right, because whenever some software framework is released, all the coders that worked with other software get fired. You don't just drop this stuff into a phone, power it on, and have a fully working device. If anything, this guarantees their jobs for a while longer (that is until they realize that frameworks alone does not a good product make).

[Andir3.0 @ Nov 7th 2007 7:42AM]

I mean, it's not like the current developers could develop Android applications instead of Symbian. That just wouldn't make sense.