Opening a new Window into Android

IT doesn't happen often nowadays but Nokia stole the spotlight from Samsung at last week's annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. While the Korean giant used that global platform to announce its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S5, the Finnish phone-maker caught the limelight and surprised everyone by unveiling a new family of smartphones which run on Google's Android OS (operating system).

Before trying to wrap one's head around this announcement - Nokia is, after all, the lone ranger keeping the Windows Mobile OS flag flying in the smartphone stakes and is soon to become a part of Microsoft - a couple of points need to be kept in mind.

One is that even though Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's devices division for US$7.2 billion is a done deal, it has not yet been completed. This means the Finnish company is still an independent entity free to pursue whichever direction it chooses. The other point is that Nokia's X phone line-up uses a "forked" version of the Android OS, one in which Google's services have been booted out. This is very similar to how Amazon took a version of Android and "forked" it for its Kindle tablet line-up.