Newkia Aiming to Take Nokia Talent to Android Platform

Out of the ashes of what many perceive as the burning death of Nokia, comes Newkia.  It is the Singapore-based company that was founded the same day the US$7.2 billion Microsoft-Nokia deal was announced, with the single aim of acquiring Nokia employees and knowledge, but to focus on the Android platform.
Newkia plans to acquire as much of Nokia’s know-how as possible and do what they really should have done at Nokia and push Android forwards.  ”The Microsoft-Nokia deal reflects the complete failure of the Windows strategy”, says Thomas Zilliacus, executive chairman and founder of Mobile FutureWorks


He spent over 15 years as a Nokia employee including seven where he was Asia-Pacific CEO. He left the company in 1993 but spent another three years under Nokia’s payroll as a regional consultant.  He left to become an entrepreneur and currently runs investment company Mobile FutureWorks, which advisors include former Nokia’s mobile phones CEO Jorma Nieminen and Ericsson’s former CEO Sven-Christer Nilsson.
Zilliacus, tried to buy out Nokia a year ago with the aim to push the company toward a strategy focused around the Android platform, but was unable to raise enough funds to do so despite approaching several global sovereign wealth and equity funds. He still believes Nokia makes the best phones in the world, citing the Lumia collection which he said had been well-received in the market.  ”But consumers simply don’t want the Windows OS because it lacks the ecosystem and there are not enough apps and services built for the platform that users find crucial today,” he said.  He added that the Windows market share is too small for developers to want to develop for the OS. “There’s also a general image problem where Microsoft isn’t perceived as a sexy company.
Developers think it’s cooler to develop for Android and Apple iOS.” He has welcomed Microsoft’s buyout because it opens up the floodgates for his company to now swoop in and gather up Nokia’s technology know-how.
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