After Microsoft's buy of what little was left of Nokia's prestige brand you'd have thought that it would have been Windows Phone all the way.  Microsoft isn't known for it's cuddling up to major competitors, or for promoting open source software.

 

A move towards Android would really have made major sense a couple of years back when Mr Elop took the helm at Nokia.  But a "Microsoft plant" wasn't going to countenance anything but a tie-up to the mother-ship despite his attempted rationalisation.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/12/elop-explains-nokia-android

 

He even killed off Nokia's own in-house Linux variant that had a large techie following, and virtually tore up Nokia's agreement with Intel to promote its MeeGo successor.

 

There have been rumours that Nokia was working on an Android device for months though, but if there was any substance behind them it looked near certain that events would have overtaken the cunning plan.  But, no!  It really is looking like a Microsoft controlled company is going through with the launch of an Android device cleverly re-skinned to look similar to a Lumia Windows Phone - the sort of Android re-brand Amazon has done.

 

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/nokia-normandy-budget-android-phone-leaked-in-purported-live-image-471541

 

The timing of this is truly amazing as Windows Phone 8 seems to be getting some traction in the market at long last, and looks about to overtake Apple in the volume of units shipped.  Why is Microsoft permitting a rival operating system?  Surely this is going to look like planning for another failure of Windows in the mobile space?  Well, it's certainly not going to impact on WP8 device shipments.  But, it is going to say to other manufacturers - reluctant to risk yet another Microsoft powered phone failure - you really should offer consumers a choice of operating systems, just like our phone division does.  And, Nokia may even make a little money out of it!  It will probably be a nice bit of hardware that will persuade some of the customers it has thrown away to return to the fold, for the very reason that they were loyal to Nokia in the first instance.

 

Nokia just changed the colour of its FB page to Android green as a tease!  This hasn't gone down terribly well with its loyal band of WP (Windows phone) users, but I don't think they need to worry as there's no way a Microsoft company is going to ditch a Microsoft operating system - this year, or next!

 

So, real soon now...