Nokia is posting job openings that seem to indicate the company may be headed back into the smartphone market after selling its mobile division to Microsoft last year.
And that's not all. It seems Nokia may be going Android with that strategy.
The job openings, posted to LinkedIn, suggest the company is headed in the direction of creating Android-powered smartphones.
The Nokia that is posting the positions is, of course, the part of Nokia that was not bought by Microsoft back in September 2013. This is interesting considering the fact that the part that was bought by Microsoft was the company's mobile division.
Prior to being bought by Microsoft, Nokia did dabble in Android, and after being acquired the mobile Nokia division announced a Nokia X series in February. These devices were running a heavily customized version of Android. However, Microsoft quickly dumped the project with the announcement that Nokia X devices would make the transition to Windows Phone and be part of the Lumia line.
The most revealing job position is for a mobile photography engineer with experience in writing drivers used on Android devices.
While the position does suggest Nokia may be launching its own Android device, it is possible that instead the company wants to add camera features to its Nokia Z Launcher or that it wants to release an Android camera app of its own.
If the company does decide to release an Android-powered device, it will be up against companies like Samsung and Apple, as well as its ex-colleagues from its old mobile division. Not only that, but it also will have to wait until 2016 to release any devices. As part of the Microsoft acquisition, Nokia is unable to use the Nokia brand for any devices until after Dec. 31, 2015.
The news also suggests that being bought by Microsoft was all part of the company's master plan. It is certainly possible that Microsoft did Nokia a favor by removing a division that it did not want any more. Microsoft also recently announced that they would be cutting 18,000 jobs, 12,500 of which were from the Nokia acquisition.
