Nokia CEO Sees “Broader Opportunity” With Windows 8, Hints At Tablets

In a brief interview with This Is My Next, Nokia CEO (and mole for Microsoft, clearly) Stephen Elop hinted strongly at the potential for a Nokia-built Windows 8 tablet. While his statement was, strictly speaking, more of a dodge, it’s clear that this is something they’re at least thinking about.

When asked about its role as a consumer electronics brand, Elop explained:

The user experience of Windows 8 is essentially a supercharged version of the Nokia Lumia experience that you saw on stage today. And you see the parallels and opportunity for commonality from a user perspective. You say wow, this is more than just smartphones, there’s a broader opportunity here. And clearly we see that broader opportunity as well, without specifically commenting on what that may mean in the future.

The topic of the conversation was largely the idea of a strongly-branded, unified user experience, which Elop feels Android doesn’t offer and Windows Phone 7 does (the iPhone didn’t come up, though it would probably fall under the unified category). So when he says Windows 8 is a supercharged Lumia experience, what he is suggesting is that the Windows 8 tablet experience is one catering to its exact use scenario, being less generalist and indeed less customizable than, say, Android.

He also mentioned the importance of HTML5, and noted that the Lumia series was just part of a larger portfolio of devices and launches they’ll be doing through early 2012. I’m looking forward to it — they seem to be onto something with their new designs and with luck they’ll be able to turn that into market share. As for Windows 8, there’s still plenty of time for that situation to evolve, so let’s not speculate too broadly.