This is the story of Nokia's spectacular downfall in ancient times, much analyzed by experts or in book form. As is known at the time, Nokia chose to use Windows Phone even though the world was getting hooked on Android.
Nokia realized the weakness of its flagship Symbian, especially after the emergence of iOS and Android. The vendors at that time such as Samsung and LG, started using Android, but not with Nokia.
Stephen Elop who became CEO of Nokia in 2010 immediately made drastic decisions. Among them turn off Symbian and choose to use the Windows Phone OS in the Nokia smartphone line.
By switching to the Microsoft platform, Elop said he was not worried that Nokia would get a small market share.
"If you use Android, of course it will be too late for anyone in this industry because there is already one vendor that has dominated and sacrificed other vendors. In the last two years, Samsung has captured the Android market share massively and squeezed other vendors so that it only gets a bigger market share. little," he said.
"We did make adjustments. But it is very clear to us that in the current ecosystem war, we have a classy decision to focus on Windows Phone with the Lumia product line," said Elop on a different occasion.
Elop's strategy did not go well. Windows Phone can not help Nokia from adversity. The question is, why don't they just switch to Android when they see that Windows Phone is not in demand?
Apparently not that simple. The Finnish journalist, David J Cord, who wrote the book The Decline and Fall of Nokia, explains why. It turned out that Nokia at that time was bound by an exclusive contract with Microsoft so that it could not use any OS other than Windows Phone.
"The big problem is that Nokia signed a long-term exclusive deal to use Windows. They don't have a plan B and they are not free to act," he said, quoted by Neowin, Thursday (9/6/2022).
"They could do like Samsung and use another OS and simultaneously make their own," he added. But the rice has turned to mush, Nokia tied to Windows Phone until it collapsed and was acquired by Microsoft.
Currently under the auspices of the new company HMD Global, Nokia is free to use Android. But of course, the competition is already very tight and they are not as successful as they used to be.
The Nokia company itself is still big, it's just that it doesn't develop its own cellphones but delegates them to HMD Global. They focus on telecommunications infrastructure technology.