Nokia's embrace of Android: Too little, too late?

Avinash Iyermoneycontrol.com

If their inability to run Android apps had compelled you to abandon Nokia phones for greener pastures (not to forget, green is the colour of the Android logo), here's something for you to cheer about. On Monday, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia unveiled its X family range of handsets. With this move, Nokia has finally opened up to the Android app, just days before selling off its handset business to Microsoft in a $7.2 billion deal. The phones -- Nokia X, X+ and XL -- are priced at 89 euros, 99 euros and 109 euros respectively. Nokia X is expected in India markets soon, while the other models are likely to come later this year.

These devices will have 7GB free cloud storage on Microsoft OneDrive and Skype and Nokia MixRadio for free streaming music. What's more is that these phones will have the latest version of Viber. While X and XL will have 4-inch screens, XL will have a 5-inch one. These phones will have a tile-based home screen just like Windows Phones.

All three devices are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon Dual Core processors and are Dual SIM. A range of third-party apps comes preinstalled, including BBM, Plants vs. Zombies 2, Vine and Twitter.

Foraying into Android is a very clear attempt on Nokia's part to stay relevant and afloat in the fiercely competitive mobile phones market, a space it once ruled. What then went wrong with this Finnish company that ushered in a mobile revolution of sorts? How did everyone's most favorite brand get relegated to the sidelines? How did a brand so famous for 'Connecting people' end up disconnecting itself from the masses? Clearly something was not right. While Nokia hit it off with the Symbian operating system, there is a general perception that they did not further fortify their software bastion. They were so focused on the hardware aspects of their devices that they took their eyes off software. Soon enough, like the hare that slept off during a race, Nokia failed to notice competitors catching up. And before it could, Samsung with its Android-based smartphones and Apple with its iPhone began to change the way people communicate. Despite rivals racing past, Nokia went ahead with embracing the Windows operating system for its phones in 2011. This move also proved to be just another of the company's not-so-sensible decisions. And then came the big announcement in September 2013 that Nokia was to sell its handset business to Microsoft as part of a $7.2 billion deal. The deal is expected to materialize in the first quarter of this year and is subject to regulatory approvals.

With its embrace of the Android platform, Nokia, which once had its finger on the pulse of mobile phone consumers, seems to have stepped back into the race after having gone off-track.

While it's too soon to judge the company's latest move, we can only wait and see what comes out of the much touted deal with Microsoft and whether it will help Nokia get its mojo back.