Nokia CEO Elop Sees Shades of “Danger” in Google’s Motorola Deal
Having cast his lot with Microsoft and Windows Phone, it’s no surprise that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop sees trouble ahead for Android in the wake of Google’s planned Motorola deal.
Speaking to a crowd of business leaders in Helsinki on Wednesday, Elop said he would be worried if he were in the Android camp.
“If I happened to be someone, an Android manufacturer or an operator, anyone with a stake in that environment, I would be picking up my phone and calling certain executives at Google and saying ‘I see signs of danger,’” Elop said, according to Bloomberg.
Elop, though, was also saying he sees shades of Danger — a reference to the name of Android chief Andy Rubin’s prior start-up, which did both the operating system and the hardware for its smartphones.
That said, Elop is hardly an objective source on the issue, having rejected overtures from Google to join the Android ecosystem. Instead, Nokia announced in February that it had struck a blockbuster deal with Microsoft to make Windows Phone its smartphone operating system of choice, a deal that Elop has said included more than a billion dollars headed in Nokia’s direction from Microsoft.