Oh man... thanks but I don't have even a fraction of the necessary skills/background/education... much less desire to be at that level. It would be nice to be back in some capacity, but it isn't that one!

That's a misguided stretch. Elop spending a couple of years at Microsoft in no way translates to Windows 7 on Nokia devices. Where do you guys come up with that sort of craziness?

I think Nokia using winmo is an absolutely absurd idea. I don't think any of the stock holders want that so it doesn't really make much sense to me why anyone would jump to that conclusion, except to sound sensationalist ...

I'm not so certain about that. This is one possible scenario, but not the only one (or even the most probable one) .

Currently, Nokia's options are:

1. Keep going with Meego
2. Moving to Android
3. Moving to Win7
4. Becoming a multi-platform company, focusing on hardware and running different OS's.

I think becoming a multi-platform company is unlikely. Nokia would be lost without a focus in one platform. Plus, they took a CEO with software background, not hardware background, which means they intend to keep pursuing the "software company" vision.

There are several reasons for going with Android: it is already an established platform, it is popular and there are a lot of apps for it. On the other hand, the Android market is already crowded, and Nokia would find it difficult to compete with the already established players in this market. In addition, Android is controlled by Google, not Nokia, so going down the Android path means being Hardware company only.

As for Win7, it could give Nokia the opportunity to become a major player in this platform, and a possible strategic deal with Microsoft would give them more control than they can get with Android. However, this is a risky choice. Previous iterations of windows mobile where failure, and it has the baggage of a negative public image.

Additionally, there is the N9. Indeed, the device is not out yet, and canceling a project before going out to market with it is something companies are doing all the time. However, I'm not so sure Nokia can afford canceling the N9 now. It can take Nokia a long time to develop a device based on a new platform, maybe another year. And in the meanwhile, they will have a gaping hole in their product line, without any high-end device (and I don't consider the N8 to be a high end device).

So Nokia can either cancel the N9, have another year without any real flagship device and then go with Win7, which is yet another unproven platform. They can go on with the N9 and Meego and see how successful it is and decide what to do with it next, but without any real commitment to the platform they won't get a lot of developers on board and it WOULD fail. The last option is to go on with the existing plans, and with their commitment to Meego, and execute it well.

It seems like there are great risks and problems with any of the options they got, so I'm really not sure what they'll choose next.

Let me quote what Ollila said couple of days ago again.
.

People are way out if they think Nokia just suddenly makes decision to go for Android/WP7 and in 12 months time here we have Nokia WP7/Android phone.

Nokia got hardware platform projects with Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, Broadcom and TI for next year alone and probably many that we don't know anything about for MeeGo and Symbian. Not to even talk about the Nokia's software side that's working on Qt and Symbian, MeeGo. Probably nice amount of services and apps that Nokia and it's partners are middle of making for the all Qt platforms(MeeGo and S^4).

Nokia have spent huge amount of time and cash for Qt, Symbian, MeeGo and are still hiring more people example for MeeGo. It's not something that will stop overnight or in a 2 years time. Thought i agree that everything is possible and if it all goes horribly wrong for Nokia in 2-3 years time who knows where what OS they will have in future.

Perhaps our man in Mountain View...



Who as a member of this organization is the only one I would be concerned about.

These other two are at the top of the food chain and who knows? We may see them both attached to new start up, picked up by another manufacturer (cough, /\/\otorola; cough, cough), or retired together on Broke Back Mountain or suttin'.

qgil on the other hand walks the walk like the rest of us and may/is caught up in this soap opera...

Didn't he just uproot his family yet again to be closer to the "Market"?

Me (Anssi) Go indeed.

Oh Fck. Just watched video. This guy really understands the power of communities and open source :| and now he is leaving.

Well, I would be much more concerned if Quim Gil or Ari Jaaksi resigned. Fortunately, they will (hopefully) stay in their positions or perhaps they'll get promoted.

Nokia won't ever go for Android, because they don't want to sell their souls to Google.
For the same reason they also won't go with Windows Phone.

The good relationship with Microsoft will probably mean Office applications for MeeGo or Bing as the default search engine or something like this. Fusion between the two? Ridiculous!

They don't have to put an ex-Microsoft guy at the company to switch to WP7. They could do it any time, as they could have changed to Android or whatever.

Nokia _owns_ Symbian and Trolltech (Qt), and has its role in MeeGo. It would be silly to drop all that to move towards Windows. It would be easier to start another company from scratch. And for the stockholders, it would be better just to sell what they have and buy from another company. Nokia has walked a long way to give up now, and whoever is still on the ship is certainly looking at what they have to continue the journey, what they can do with what they have.

Even if they do release Windows Phone 7 devices, I don't see why they might not keep the cheaper Symbian^3 ones, and even MeeGo phones and devices... If you think about it, they already have a Widnows 7 device, the Nokia 3G Netbook. So Nokia today sells Symbian S40 devices, Simbian^1 devices, Maemo and Windows 7, and have a Symbian^3 one on the way. There is no reason they should now drop all that to release a single big Windows Phone 7 device. If they do release one, it will be just one more device.

And by the way... I bet they didn't voice support for WP7 in the interviews either, did they? Does that mean it's not going to be adopted too?

Nokia released Symbian to an open source foundation, and even though they bought Trolltech for Qt, they are moving to open governance for it.