Four years ago, Stephen Elop, Nokia’s then-CEO, described the company as a man at the edge of a burning platform. While its rivals had set the phone market on fire, Nokia had poured gasoline on its own platform by failing to acknowledge that newcomers Apple and Google had changed the game.

四年前，诺基亚当时的CEO史蒂芬·埃洛普把公司比喻为一个站在燃烧中的钻井平台边缘的人。当它的竞争对手点燃手机市场时，诺基亚还在自己的平台上开采石油，没有注意到苹果、谷歌等新面孔已经让游戏规则发生了改变。

In hindsight, the “burning platform” memo¹ can be seen as the prelude² to the 2013 disposal of its once dominant³ mobile handset business to Microsoft in what many Finns considered a fire sale. The operation that made the candy-bar phone as ubiquitous as the smooth black slate⁴ of the iPhone is today was no more.

现在回头来看，“燃烧的平台”备忘录可以被视为诺基亚在2013年放弃手机业务的前兆。它将这个曾经是业界第一的业务出售给微软，而许多芬兰人认为这简直是一次大甩卖。这也使得曾经诺记亚的直板手机从此不复存在——曾几何时，它们和今天的黑色苹果手机一样无处不在。

So it is surprising that Nokia is quietly plotting a return to the consumer mobile market.

正因如此，诺基亚暗中打算重返消费手机市场才如此令人惊讶。

As early as next year, the company aims to rejoin the phone market, two sources briefed on Nokia’s plans told Re/code. In addition, the company has a number of other ambitious technology projects, including some in the virtual reality arena⁵, these sources said.

Re/code从两处消息来源获得了诺基亚计划的梗概：公司计划明年就重返手机市场；它还有许多雄心勃勃的科技项目，其中一些和虚拟现实竞技场有关。

The move is driven by Nokia Technologies — the smallest of the three businesses that remained after the Microsoft deal, alongside its mapping and network equipment businesses. Nokia Technologies is best known for being the arm that licenses⁷ the company’s massive portfolio⁸ of more than 10,000 patents.

微软收购后，诺基亚仅剩下地图、网络设备和诺基亚科技三项业务。此次行动正是由其中规模最小的诺基亚科技推动的。诺基亚科技是公司专利授权方面的武器，并因此知名。诺基亚在专利上进行了大量投资，拥有10000多项专利。

Unlike other patent houses that do little more than license⁶ intellectual property, Nokia Technologies has designed new products and licensed⁹ them to other companies. So far, these ambitions have been small in scale. The division has released just two products: An Android program called Zlauncher and the N1, an Android tablet design licensed to another manufacturer that is selling it under the Nokia name in China. Its return to the market is likely to employ a similar tactic¹⁰.

和其它专利公司不同，诺基亚科技并不局限于知识产权授权。它还设计新产品并授权给其它公司。目前为止，它的这些报负的规模并不大，只发布了两款产品：一款名为Zlauncher的安卓应用和N1安卓平板。N1的设计被授权给另一家制造商，并由它在中国以诺基亚的名义出售。诺基亚重返手机市场可能会采取和N1相同的策略。