Is there any real reason why nokia would say such thing. I been reading this forum as well as writing in it and everyone seems to be pissed off. Also everyone have their own reason for what it might be is there any official statement to explain why they would downplay such a powerful device?

I think it was said in the vein of "Look, it is awesome right? Right? Guess what, it is only step 4, so we can make it MORE awesome! /flex"

And why he said that? Perhaps because they want the platform and its ecosystem to be even more developed before launching it. Probably it is going to be the spearhead into the US market, and it has to be as failproof as possible.

It sounds more like "This is step 4 out of 5, it's still an unfinished product"

They can say that they're commited to future development and more maemo devices to come later. But saying it's step 4 sounds like it's not ready and you should wait for the final step 5 to get excited.

Honestly the whole launch of the n900 was slightly disappointing from a marketing perspective. Either they didn't want it to get too much attention, wanting to save it for the 5th generation, but that's failed because it's getting a lot of press and interest, or they were looking for just that, in which case they presented it in a less than optimal way.

I'm toying with the idea of doing a small open-marketing campaign if there's support in the community. Basically we'll work together in an open way to do some underground marketing, although I suspect Nokia would have some things to say on the matter, does anyone know if we're allowed to do things like this?

The basics of it, as I see it:
It should create awareness about maemo, which will hopefully lead to more developers coming in, better sales of the device etc. it should be easy to execute, because we all have other things to do as well, and it should be free. My ideas that fit his description so far are pretty much limited to having a bunch of people opening their windows and hollering out "Maemo on Nokia" as loud as they can two days prior to the device launching. But here comes the beauty of open source, we'll have many people contributing ideas and helping to make it work.

That post was a lot longer han I intended, sorry about that. Anyways, to get back on topic, I think it was a bit of a mistake the way they presented the n900 but they might have had their reasons.

PS: if anyone has any thoughts or knowledge regarding an open-marketing thing please feel free to enlighten me

this is linux.
we come to help build the barn.

If that is what he meant he should have said this is our first major step and soon will be releasing an even more compelling UI with the addition of qt.

Because step four of a five plan project sound incomplete, or only eighty percent complete.

Well, having a presentation in Nokia World of course means the whole of Nokia. In the scale of Nokia, Maemo is a small (albeit important) part of the bigger picture. There is a lot riding on the N97, the N97 mini, the X6 etc. S60 and S40 devices, as well as the various services. I wasn't even expecting Anssi to say that "hey, forget about these devices, here's the N900!".

Still, people do make their voices heard.

It seems to me some free/viral marketing is the way to go with this, considering maemo is open-source. But I don't think the yelling out the window is the best way... lol

Here's what I think would be a great way, and would drive alot of traffic and build awareness.

We pick a day/time, or just always, where everyone in the community puts something like

"Wow. I really hope "girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife name" doesn't find out about my new love, http://bit.ly/4uqsTe"

In their facebook/messenger/twitter/gchat/etc. status/update spot. by using the name, people will understand its not a virus, and the hidden link is a bit intriguing also.

Of course the problem with any next step is that ... Naturally everybody is aiming to make the next step better - otherwise why even take it - but then again, you cannot be sure of it before it's done.

I'm hoping it will be eventually better, and I'm trying to do my best on my small area with it, but there are a lot of factors and variables with it. There's always the risk that things don't turn out well.

Meanwhile, we know that step 4 turned out pretty good indeed. It's in our hands and we get to use it and you see it in the videos. So I wouldn't advocate to anybody waiting for the next step, but going out and buying the N900.

LTE is coming. Also slashgears notes from interviews at Nokia World gives the impression we might get multiple maemo devices on the market.
LTE link
http://conversations.nokia.com/2009/...d-3-available/
Without flash 10 I would consider it not the final step no matter how nice the device is.