Nokia buys Smarterphone, going to steer away from Windows Phone a bit?
Although Nokia is telling the world that it's still 100% going forward with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system, what the former company is doing is starting to tell people otherwise.
Smarterphone is a Norwegian company that develops a smartphone-esque operating system for non-smartphone phones. Nokia acquired this company in November of 2011, but the news is just coming out now.
Since a large part of Nokia's business is and always will be dumbphones, I think it sounds like some of those phones will actually get this software via an over-the-air update, which will help Nokia gain some ground in the smartphone race.
Of course, I highly doubt Smarterphone's software will end up on some of Nokia's higher-end phones, but I also think that it could give customers who aren't so tech-savvy a nice "gateway OS" to lead them to buy better and more advanced smartphones in the future.
Hopefully Microsoft doesn't get too upset at its partner for trying to bridge the gap between the two categories of phones. In all actuality, it could lead to better sales for every platform, so Microsoft shouldn't be too worried.
[TechCrunch]
