When Will Microsoft Dump Windows Phone for Android?

Nokia—in the process of being acquired by Microsoft—is now releasing Android phones. Finally, Microsoft can stop panicking itself into competition with Google where none was ever necessary.

Nokia Android Vs Windows Phone

I do not think it was much of a surprise that Nokia bit the bullet and released an Android phone at Mobile World Congress, the big mobile phone confab in Barcelona. When Nokia went all-in with Windows Phone and sank like a rock in the process, it was apparent that the company would have to make a change eventually or go broke.

The funny thing is, this Android change happened after Microsoft bought the company for pennies on the dollar. It is apparent to me that Microsoft is going to drop the entire Windows Phone line of software and instead make money with Android.

Does this mean that Microsoft is going to rethink its entire OS strategy? Maybe, if it increases bottom line profits. But this is what I think will actually happen:

Microsoft does like its sliding tiles interface, no matter what the public thinks. And the company is still subscribing to the "one user experience" notion established by Windows 8 and the Surface tablet, which both were designed to reflect the Windows Phone UI.

The Android OS is highly customizable. So why not just slap the sliding tiles onto the Android phone? Is that impossible? Of course not. Microsoft would still have a distinctive look and feel while being in the Android camp, with no need to spend an inordinate amount of capital supporting the unpopular Windows phone platform at a financial loss.

On top of that, Microsoft can leverage the Google Play store for apps. Thus, Microsoft gets out of the business where it's losing, still gets to sell snazzy Nokia phones in its stores, and continues to look like a company out to make money. Pride be damned.

This sort of move is only possible with a new CEO and a less NIH (Not Invented Here) mentality that has costs the company millions of dollars in wasted R&D. Microsoft is constantly re-inventing the wheel, to its detriment.

First, many flies in the ointment have to be resolved. "OK, Google" is the one that stands out like a sore thumb. Will the Nokia X Android phones respond to "OK, Google?" I would hope not. It should be programmed into responding to "Hello, Nokia," then link to the Bing Search engine. That is, unless Bing is on the way out with the new CEO. There is chatter to that effect.

If Microsoft sold off Bing to someone else—maybe Yahoo?—and realized that this is not a business to be in, we might see a "OK, Google" after all.

Microsoft makes its money from software. Google makes its money from selling ads. Yet, they see each other as competitors. Microsoft thinks Google is going to infringe on its software business and Google sees Bing and other initiatives as direct threats.

To make matters worse, Steve Ballmer a few years back claimed that most of Microsoft's revenue in the future would come from advertising. He should have been fired on the spot. What if the CEO of Ford Motor Company said something like that? What was he thinking? But Google paid attention and amped up software development.

People have to realize that the Google Phone project and the Android OS project began early and in earnest when Eric Schmidt was still a board member at Apple and saw the very early pre-2007 vision for the iPhone. Since Google is a one-stop advertising agency, it saw the phone as a threat to its dominance because it would be a closed platform that Apple would own. A Google-centric alternative was needed.

It was all about search on mobile and advertising on mobile. This wasn't a threat to Microsoft, but Redmond saw it as a platform threat anyway.

Microsoft could not see smartphones as new platforms because the company had invented the smartphone years earlier as an extension of the desktop. So it misinterpreted reality and panicked.

For Microsoft, the Windows Phone idea was a defensive measure. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But the company would have gotten the same or better results if they adopted Android from the beginning and pulled their old Microsoft stunt of embracing and extending, rather than competing.

That may be what the company is going to do now. Finally.