Column: Is Nokia dipping its toe in Android waters?

The last few years have been pretty rough on poor ol' Nokia.

Once the world's largest smartphone vendor, Nokia began this year in the number-10 position, falling hard from the salad days of low-end feature phones. After hitching its wagon to Microsoft, the handset maker began manufacturing solid devices that were hamstrung by an underdeveloped and undersupported mobile OS, causing them to languish in obscurity. And that was after former CEO Stephen Elop famously noted the company's precipitous decline in an infamous memo that blasted Nokia's feeble attempts to take on Apple and Google, saying it now sits atop a "burning platform."

And now, a few months after Microsoft announced it will be acquiring Nokia's mobile phone business, it would appear that Nokia is forever tied to the Windows Phone OS with no hope of releasing a fantastically built smartphone on a competing platform.