Yesterday, The Guardian carried an article that claimed Nokia would ditch Symbian for Android and would introduce a touchscreen device at the Nokia World event in September. While the blogosphere went into a tizzy, we kept away from reporting it as we did not have an iota of doubt that the reporter was either misinformed or he mis-interpreted what his ‘industry sources’ said. (Nokia denied having any such plans via Reuters later in the day.)

Having said that, it ain’t unthinkable for Nokia to ditch Symbian sometime sooner than later. So far, Nokia’s attempts at making a touchscreen phone on the Symbian platform have been anything but impressive. We have been using the N97 for almost a week now and it is nowhere close to the iPhone or for that matter other smartphones running on Windows Mobile and Android platforms. Once considered the king of smartphones, Nokia is losing its smartphone marketshare. While we won’t discount the success of Apple’s iPhone or RIM’s latest crop of BlackBerry handhelds, but a major reason for Nokia’s laggard performance has been its operating system, which has not changed much since 2007, the year the iPhone was launched.

Even after acquiring Symbian and setting up the Symbian Foundation, not much has changed on the platform front. Symbian OS continues to be the same and in our opinion, it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to meet the expectations of the consumers, who now have a choice of equally compelling mobile operating systems to choose from.

Sooner than later, Nokia will have to introduce its Linux-based operating system called Maemo, which is currently restricted to its Internet Tablets like the N800 and the N810. We believe that Nokia would continue using the Symbian platform (the Symbian S60 platform will eventually cease to exist) for its mid-end products but for most of its touchscreen phones, it will have to employ Maemo (or a variation of Maemo).

This should begin with the Rover, which is expected to be announced during Nokia World in September that would mark a new beginning for Nokia and its quest to remain the global numero uno smartphone vendor.

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