Android apps on Windows Phone would be an ugly capitulation

Prolific leaker evleaks, whose stock in trade is smartphone-related rumors, has said that Microsoft is going to produce a Lumia phone running Android, branded “Nokia by Microsoft.”

This isn’t the first time that this kind of rumor has been floated, with both Windows and Windows Phone talked of as candidates for running Android apps. The logic is very simple: developers aren’t writing apps for Windows’s Metro environment or Windows Phone. They are writing apps for Android. Put those apps on Windows and Windows Phone and the app problem is instantly solved.

Of course, the downsides of this approach are quite clear. If Windows Phone or Windows can run Android apps, why should developers looking at Microsoft’s platform bother writing Windows Phone and Windows apps? Might as well just write Android apps and have an app that works both on Microsoft’s platform and beyond. This logic applies even to those developers who have taken the plunge and created Windows or Windows Phone apps; why bother maintaining them when an Android app could target the very same users plus many more?