The strategy Nokia has chosen is certainly an interesting, albeit fairly commonplace, one: differentiation by assimilation. That is, the company is looking to make its offerings stand out in a market place where, concurrently, at least four other major hardware manufacturers will be offering devices running identical software. Nokia’s former executive vice president of mobile solutions, Anssi Vanjoki, once likened Nokia adopting Android to someone who pees in their pants to keep warm. The temporary relief from the cold gives birth to a bigger problem in the end. So what makes Microsoft and Windows Phone different from Google and Android?

La risposta alla domanda in grassetto credo riguardi la cifra che Microsoft sembra aver pagato a Nokia per l'accordo.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has confirmed that the company was in discussion with Google over the possibility of using Android on its smartphones, but concerns over there being sufficient scope to build a unique identity in the Android device ecosystem instead led them to Microsoft’s door. Elop suggested that there were “too many players” in Android, and that Nokia’s concern was that it “couldn’t differentiate products.

Detto questo Nokia sceglie Microsoft, che in teoria dovrebbe offrire ancora meno apertura per potersi differenziare. O il WP7 per Nokia sarà diverso, oppure semplicemente la motivazione è una fesseria.