Sadly for N9 fans, though, Williams believes the MeeGo ship has now sailed. "The team has left or been reassigned from what I hear, and the ecosystem and developer support is not there," he says.
Pretty good analysis. Its what I said before, couldn't NOKIA just say they are partnering to bring its innovations into WP without disrupting its current assets.
They could've had low-mid range some quality Symbian products.
Then some mid-range Lumia offerings.
Then perhaps a few high-end MeeGo offerings (would've at least kept developers).
If they realized WP wasn't selling as best as they hoped and that MeeGo was selling above their expectations, they could always just axe it or limit it to a few choices.
Later, they would completely eliminate Symbian as a whole ecosystem.
In place they would have MeeGo, which could be optimized (many software features removed) for low-end devices, and optimized differently for high-end devices. At least that's what Google's Android is doing, and its working!
When Windows Phone 8 debuts, Nokia can still be the "official" partner and sell them as mid and high-end devices. So it would be a 2-ecosystem plan for NOKIA just as they wanted, only that one ecosystem is closed and belongs to M$ and the other belongs to Nokia/Open Source.
I think that Elop and M$ agreed to keep N9 and Meego out of several important markets because they knew that many non-techies would prefer Meego over WP. The swipe UI is habit forming and you never have to open the N9's terminal if you don't want to. My girlfriend loves swipe, and she's as non-techy as they come.
I have to believe that Elop's burning platform communication was part of the deal with M$. Otherwise it would make ZERO sense. Failing to release the N9 when Nokia really could have used the sales boost was insanity or corruption.
I would advise diversifying Nokia smartphone devices in all areas: WP, Meego, and Android, and then just let the market show you what it wants.
