I don't agree with Nokia's decision (one reason I'm selling my N900), but I understand why they went in this direction. Anyone that has been in these forums knows Nokia had many chances to lead in the smartphone space.

They shocked the world with the 770, N800. The N810 was the start of the letdown because that should have been the first model with a phone or released a lot sooner. The N900 was great, but in hindsight they should have added a capacitive touch screen to make the move to Maemo 6 possible with the N900. Instead it was kind of still born.

With the Microsoft deal Nokia can become the premier supplier of Windows Phone X. Basically Microsoft will do the software and Nokia the hardware (plus some services). Nokia gets an OS that is very nice and has great integration capabilities (Zune, Xbox live). It's a known brand (for better or worse).

I would buy a Nokia phone with WP 7/8 on it. The only people this really hurts are the Symbian and Qt developers internally/externally. I would like to have heard Qt was being ported to WP 7. But Microsoft is considered one of the best tool suppliers out there, so...