Boosted by its Lumia Windows Phone, Nokia posted its first profit in six quarters on Thursday, but that didn't stop people from wondering if it will ever release an Android phone. During a press conference dedicated to the company's new earnings report, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop left no doubt that his company is planting itself firmly in Microsoft's camp.
Nokia's strategy does involve a second platform for its handsets, but it's not going to be Google's operating system. Instead, as it attempts to scale down the costs of its Windows Phones to eventually compete with Android, the company will promote its Asha devices to developers and budget-conscious consumers.
"We are clearly innovating with Microsoft around Windows Phone, and are focused on taking that to lower and lower price points," said Elop. "You will see that over time compete with Android. But at the same time we've said consistently - and we're just beginning to see it in the Asha full-touch products - that we will continue to innovate around our Asha smartphone line in order to compete with the very lowest levels of Android. We are not in a situation where we are considering something other than Windows Phone combined with what we're doing with Asha."
Elop's statement could be construed to mean that while the company is not "in a situation" to consider Android now, it could be in one down the road, but it's clear that the company won't be changing course anytime soon.
Previous reports indicated that Nokia was open to designing an Android device in the future due to consecutive quarters of losses.
Not content to simply bat away Android phone speculation, Elop publically slapped Google for supposedly moving further away from an open mobile ecosystem.
"The situation that Android is facing, where the amount of fragmentation that you're seeing is increasing as people take it in different directions, is of course offset by Google's efforts to turn an open ecosystem into something that's quite a bit more closed as you've seen quite recently," he said.
The Nokia boss didn't specifically cite any instances to back up his claim, but it's possible he could be referring to a number of developments. Google recently blocked Windows Phone users from using the browser version of Google Maps, and also dropped Exchange ActiveSync support for Windows Phone.
