I'm not saying Samsung and Nokia aren't both smartphone makers, obviously. But being on WP8 definitely insulates Nokia from direct attack (as much as Samsung targets Apple, its #1 priority is maintaining dominance in Android),
Surely its #1 priority is maintaining dominance, period. Samsung has no great loyalty to Android - Bada, Tizen as well as their WP phones are testament to that.
This is a company that will try anything at least once. Which is also why they preempted almost everyone else with their Slate 7 Windows 7 tablet, why they have the premier Chromebook, and why they've got more tablet (and phone) form factors out there than anyone else. Heck, they've shown they'll give most any CPU vendor a shot, too.
So it turns out that WP hasn't worked out that well for Samsung, but that's hardly a suprise considering that HTC, LG, Dell and even Nokia are hardly doing great.
Nokia doesn't even have exclusivity, how does this insulate them from attack even if you think that WP is somehow on a different playing field than other ecosystems? If anything, they're boxed in.
and it also gives them a unique angle of attack desired by AT&T's CEO.
Another explanation after the fact by Elop that you seem to accept as gospel. Hey, AT&T also hates Skype, but somehow that isn't a factor for Elop.
At least the man realizes that his track record so far requires a lot of justification.
Please, the "strong Nokia ecosystem" is a complete mirage.
What does that mean? Is building a third ecosystem outside of Android useful or not? Which one is it?
First of all, I didn't post that to make Elop out as some sort of soothsayer. His arguments are pretty obvious, and have been made by many others. It just confirms that Elop came up with the same conclusions. Secondly, do you think Nokia just blindly handed the keys to Elop? He made and presented the business case before becoming CEO.
It might've confirmed this if he said it before it came to pass. Right now it just confirms Elop will say anything necessary to justify his choice to go with Microsoft by default.
Frankly, I can't tell you what Nokia may have been thinking. At least Sony has managed to secure its home market, and that's presented as some sort of doesn't-count-as-it-is-inevitable advantage. Nokia can't even claim that anymore though.
Give me a break. They were far from a market leader when Elop took over.
Sony lost market share from Q4 2010 to now. Motorola hasn't gotten anywhere with Android despite being bought by Google. If my narrative is so silly, why don't you show me the non-Chinese makers of Android smartphones that have grown faster than the Lumia line has?
Well Samsung, I guess? But what difference does it make? Nokia could've had all of the advantages of name recognition, quality hardware, camera functionality and what have you on Android (and they wouldn't have had to wait for the software to catch up with support for high res cameras, more than single core processors, or resolutions higher than 800x480, and now 1280x720). They might well have posed a stronger challenge to Samsung than others, and they wouldn't be stuck in an anemic app environment today.