Nokia Kicks Off Hiring Spree To Bolster Anticipated Smartphone Comeback
It’s far too soon to predict whether Nokia will have any success breaking back into the market it once dominated, but it’s clearly going to try. Position postings on LinkedIn suggest that the comeback plan envisioned by Nokia’s CEO, Rajeev Suri, is underway. Nokia expects to shed the legal restraints from the sale of its phone division to Microsoft toward the end of 2016, at which point it will be free to take on the companies that brought it down: Apple and Samsung.
The biggest indication that Nokia could be planning to re-enter the smartphone market in the near future can be found on LinkedIn. The company has been posting open positions related to product development on the job search site. One area of expertise that Nokia is interested in: Android. On top of that, the company is rumored to be reducing the number of people it had originally planned to lay off in the near future.
If Nokia comes back to the smartphone market, it would make sense that its devices run Android. The brand failed while being piloted by Microsoft, which used its Windows Phone operating system, so it would be surprising to see Nokia partner with Microsoft when it regains the rights to the Nokia brand in late 2016. That leaves Android, the world’s most prevalent smartphone operating system.
There are already signs that would suggest Android as the OS for any upcoming Nokia smartphones. For one thing, Nokia. The company has already created Z Launcher, which is a predictive interface for Android. Z Launcher lets you write a letter with your finger to display a list of apps that start with that letter, so you can launch “anything in one second,” according to the company.
While it seems likely that Nokia will re-enter the smartphone market after it regains its rights from Microsoft, it’s not clear yet whether the company intends to build phones (as it once did) or seek lower-risk options, as Suri has suggested it should. One option that Nokia appears to be considering would be to lease its brand to other phone manufacturers, which would make for less revenue and, importantly, less risk.
Nokia isn’t staking its entire business on phones, however. In addition to its telecoms business, Nokia has also begun promoting another device, the OZO, which is a 3D virtual reality camera.
The biggest indication that Nokia could be planning to re-enter the smartphone market in the near future can be found on LinkedIn. The company has been posting open positions related to product development on the job search site. One area of expertise that Nokia is interested in: Android. On top of that, the company is rumored to be reducing the number of people it had originally planned to lay off in the near future.
If Nokia comes back to the smartphone market, it would make sense that its devices run Android. The brand failed while being piloted by Microsoft, which used its Windows Phone operating system, so it would be surprising to see Nokia partner with Microsoft when it regains the rights to the Nokia brand in late 2016. That leaves Android, the world’s most prevalent smartphone operating system.
There are already signs that would suggest Android as the OS for any upcoming Nokia smartphones. For one thing, Nokia. The company has already created Z Launcher, which is a predictive interface for Android. Z Launcher lets you write a letter with your finger to display a list of apps that start with that letter, so you can launch “anything in one second,” according to the company.
While it seems likely that Nokia will re-enter the smartphone market after it regains its rights from Microsoft, it’s not clear yet whether the company intends to build phones (as it once did) or seek lower-risk options, as Suri has suggested it should. One option that Nokia appears to be considering would be to lease its brand to other phone manufacturers, which would make for less revenue and, importantly, less risk.
Nokia isn’t staking its entire business on phones, however. In addition to its telecoms business, Nokia has also begun promoting another device, the OZO, which is a 3D virtual reality camera.
