NOKIA is the number one phone manufacturer in the world, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the news. Bloggers and journalists constantly point out that NOKIA is fighting a losing battle for smartphone buyers and losing ground to Google Android and Apple’s iPhone.

So journalists often ask why NOKIA doesn’t just abandon Symbian and release products running Android. Lame duck Mobile Solutions leader Anssi Vanjkoi dismisses that suggestion, saying that Android is a temporary solution that will lead to “permanently-low profitability” for companies unable to distinguish themselves from the pack.

I’d like to take the moment to remind everyone that NOKIA switching to Android would be a terrible idea. For NOKIA, it makes no sense because the company would lose prestige and spend a long period attempting to transition into a field that already has plenty of names better suited to deliver an Android product (for now, at least). The company entered this unenviable position because for years it released good hardware with awful software, and all but abandoned the U.S. market. Embracing a foreign operating system isn’t the answer; not until we see how MeeGo performs when it’s released.

Android users shouldn’t want every company to embrace Android. There should be different experiences and options that keep phone makers on their toes. Would Android be the way it is today if not for the iPhone and webOS advancements pushing Google and the OHA to innovate? Would iOS look the same if not for Android?

I want MeeGo to be good enough to save NOKIA from slipping into irrelevance. Competition is good, so let’s stop expecting NOKIA to be another cog in the machine rather than a rival machine.

Financial Times via Engadget

The boot process that was recorded in the video, has come after what seems like a very large list of modifications and 19 days worth of work. It resulted in a successful boot that shows the main menu and also has the use of applications.

Bottom line, it just goes to show that an open source operating system will end up on a variety of devices. It also gives us a good look at what we can hopefully expect to come in the future, I for one would love to see a custom version of Android for the N810.

[NthCode via Android Community]