This is absolutely HILARIOUS. I won't respond to any single Nokia defending comment, but a general response.

Now, I'll preface this by saying I've been a fan of Maemo for a few years. I haven't been that worried because the tablets I've had I didn't need to depend on for day-to-day important activities. I pre-ordered the N900 like many of you. I was excited about the specs, videos and rumor mill. I was hoping it would be a nice replacement for the N810 I had (and I still own 3 tablets - 800, 810, 810 wimax). I still have to carry my N810 as the N900 wasn't quite there. I have been a fan of and loyal to Nokia as well as Maemo. What I've seen with the N900, how bugs/enhancement requests are handled, the inferences I can make on roadmap and the fact that we were given dated hardware on a 2010 flagship phone (even HTC/Google released 1GHz/512MB RAM already), I've been very disappointed in Nokia by what appears to be the company that I thought "got it" finally, still doesn't "get it."

1) First, I must say I have been humored by the over-rationalization trying to get this square phone to fit in a round hole. I see this EVERYWHERE. Does it do this or that questions are met with "yes it does" and give the odd workarounds and far stretches. I really like "does it rotate like iphone or [android]" with the response an emphatic "YES! (show customer portrait mode)". Hi Def videos? Wow - at 25fps, Hollywood only needs to carry these things and save a semi-full of equipment. Seamlessly integrate your phone and email and PIM contacts across blah blah? Huh? I never thought I'd say this, but from the N900 have risen serious fanboys - even delusional. Man. Yes, it'll even cook your dinner, shine your shoes and give you a happy ending when done with the lawn. But, will it marry me? Why, yes, it certainly will; here's the perl script, or there is an app in devels, but be careful with that because it sometimes screams "I hate you" and Maemo says it's too complex to fix that particular bug. I like the N900, Maemo and Nokia, but at least I haven't stepped into the nethers.

2) Nokia has been losing market share faster than anyone, even Nokia imagined (which they've admitted). In the smartphone category, which is now the fastest growing phone category, they have gone from mid-30% GLOBAL market share to under 15% in just 12-months (it's been all over the news so I'm surprised that no one knows either of these facts). Last I checked, Apple's iPhone has nearly reached 20% global smartphone market share and it still isn't rolled out in every country with China and Korea just opening up for them: two of the hottest spots for smartphones. Apple is AHEAD of Nokia in smartphone market share - period.

3) What does shareholder from a stock/bond/derivative perspective have anything to do with this? You buy a Nokia-anything, you are the customer. You are the number one stakeholder that all the debt and equity shareholders DEPEND on. Lose customers, you have a big problem all around. Economics and business 101. I held some Nokia ADRs a few years ago and I'm glad I dumped them. Bought because I loved their product and saw Nokia everywhere. Dumped because their market share was starting to slip. So I've been both and who cares.

4) You only care about having "hackable" Linux. Cool, cool, cool *eye roll* - Apple and Android are showing everyone that the other 99% of people out there don't care one bit about that. They care about a phone that does what they need, which is make calls, lasts, handles email, handles SMS, handles MMS (2.71% of all messages sent, but Apple/AT&T learned the hard way it is still a big deal), has a great UIX, plays movie/music, great PIM that syncs right, corp use, games - hmmm, I don't see Linux anything in there. In fact, most reviews whether CNET, engadget and others never do anything but mention the OS and do so in its relevance of the review.

3) Multi-tasking? Oh, that great, great word I see has been perpetually misused so much that now everyone calls the ability to run more than one app "multi-tasking" - good grief. Running multi-apps depend on and use multi-tasking and allows people to multi-task (kind of - but not really on a 3.5" screen and itsy keyboard), but itself is not multi-tasking (DOS had no native cooperative or preemptive multitasking, but you could certainly switch between apps). Yes, even the iphone uses multi-tasking - it wouldn't run w/out it. Running multiple apps is different. Know what? 20% of the world's smartphone users out there say they DON'T CARE. The 50ish% of smartphone users out there that no one talks about are BB users. What do they care about? Corporate email, phone calls and battery life. Just walk into an airport and you'll see the majority of people have iphones and BBs and I can't ever recall anyone saying "d*manit! why can't I multitask!!! F this thing!" No, they are happily checking email, texting, talking on the phone or play solitaire. So give us all a break with "but it multitasks." Yeah, so did the Dash running WinMo5 that I owned 4-years ago. It also had a terminal program and I could ssh into a linux box - wow.

BB and iPhone = about 70% of global smartphones. The other 30%? Winmo, Android, S60 and the other smattering.

4) It is well-known and accepted that "dumb" phones are pretty much history. This talk about N900 being a tablet that happens to be a phone - give me a break. That convergence started and did take place a few years ago. Aside from easily getting root or using debian Linux (don't get me wrong - a big plus), what exactly does it do that you can't do with Winmo, iphone or android? Seriously? The N900 will allow people to mess it up easier, but c'mon. Anyway, Nokia still has a slippery grip on dumb phones but many are laughing at Nokia as being far behind the curve. They need to get real and wake up or there will be no more Nokia and Maemo will be a nice memory rather than being on the majority of handsets.

Since RIM still is the king of what falls in market research's smartphone category and Apple gained 10% share in 1-year, I kinda think Nokia and some of you need to drop the functional fixedness and watch what the majority wants/needs.

Why should you care? Because, if you love Maemo and Nokia so much, you kinda want both around. It's well known they are bleeding from several orifices. Nokia doesn't do well with the N900 or it's successor (or generally in the smartphone market), by then it'll be too late (I'm talking 12-18 months). iPhone, Android and WinMo7 (don't laugh until you've seen it) will have eatin their breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and probably something else. The N900 doing well? No. $100 price drop in less than 2-months, all the WONTFIXs for basic, basic features like those mentioned above, all the wailing and gnashing of teeth out there, the reviews popping up that are past infatuation stage, the fact it has been rated lower than an N97 on many sites (the tops tend to be iPhone 3GS, DROID, N85, iPhone 3G, ERIS - yes, the good ol' N85 that really grabbed my loyalty - the N97 is usually at the bottom, but somehow, N900 has been pushing it up a notch), Nokia/Maemo who worry about the complexity of doing something so mark WONTFIX rather than what customers want (lost count how much I've seen them use "this is too complex" in a ticket then marked WONTFIX), the poor PIM and EAS client implementation that make it almost unusable for work (well, it is unusable if you need Exch03, which many still do- wth?), no MMS, abysmal battery life, no 802.11n (c'mon, many phones have had this and I had to add back a wifi router just for this thing!), weak/slow GPS - on and on.

Now, I know someone will be tempted to pull something out of context and just tear into my posting. Be my guest, but that means you've missed my meta point. It is the aggregate of everything written that will lead to failure. Nokia's (and Maemo's) publicly visible lack of holistic view of the market and customers will be it's ultimate downfall.

So, yes, this topic is simply restating what many, many have been saying and I absolutely agree: Nokia needs to change something.

You'd think people in this industry would learn from Motorola's record of nearly going belly up three times in 20-years. At least they've changed something - again.

Very interesting article.

I dont know about android being a dead end, the latest android devices have generated a lot of hype and are very powerful devices. I think if SE and Motorola embrace Android then then they do not need one of their own and they can keep on making good devices.

Nokia are struggling with Symbian, if you put S60 5th up against Apple, Android, Palm and even Maemo it is the ugly step sister of the bunch. It looks very archaic and ugly, cant speak for europe but here in the states (yes that 7%) I dont know of anyone with a S60 5th edition device (actually dont know of anyone with a nokia device period)!

I had a 5800 but jumped over to Maemo when the N900 came out. To make matters worse for Symbian at the minute Nokia have crippled all of their latest S60 5th offerings with only 128MB's worth of memory which sucks to say the least!!! 128MB's of memory is far too constrained, even worse so when you compare that the nexus one has 512MB's of memory.

Nokia make great hardware devices, while the 5800 had major failings it was cheap and packed a lot of top end hardware! The problem though is the software and services, Ovi is a good start but as of yet the N900 does not have OVI support or an Ovi store. Apple set the standard here and everyone else has been trying to catch up - the current Ovi store Nokia have uses WRT which I found to be a total pain to use!

I think this next year will be very interesting to watch. I am hoping that the N900 does not get sidelined by Nokia, I am very hopeful for this device!

i dont agree totally. s60 is awesome and a little complicated if you dnt take 3 days to learn it.

1. if Nokia could make as much money as apple on Apps - they would. They are a commercial business and need to make stockholders happy - period.

2. Nokia seems to have found a new working trend. Release a Beta Product. Do a few incremental upgrades. Then after 6-12 months do a real update so the device can actually do what it was meant to do and release a "MINI" version at the same time. So I guess if I'm right V2 is about 8-10 months away and N900 mini will be launched. (For those who do not know - that above was the tale of the N97)

Well here is what it meant to my "first mover" friends. Many of them bought the device when it came out (N97) they then got so angry with the bugs - that they ALL (we are talking 12-15 people) - moved to iPhone that covers most of their needs.

Some of them have iPhone 3G - Some got 3GS. But speaking to them now - they have no intention on changing. The average "First Mover" is actually quite happy with their iPhone - and the ones who got the 3G - have not upgraded to 3GS. They still look hungry at new offerings (they are first movers after all) - but they are contempt with the phone they have and won't change UNLESS something comes along that will impress them as first movers.

I DO NOT care about OS wars - Windows, OSX, Linux/distribution, Solaris, DOS, Windows Mobile, Palm, Android etc. But what I do care about is my Phone can do basic stuff like Exchange email, send sms's, use USSD (* commands), use voicemail.

What I LIKE to have is VPN with Default gateway to VPN server on ALL networks, VoIP working in background so it is loaded all of the time - and a phone I can rely on.

I do not care if you call it a computer, I don't care about OS, I care about usability and interoperability and convergence . I don't even care who makes them (apart from child or slave labour)

N900 scores high on convergence - but usability and interoperability - is the weak points. Not that it does not have it. It is just not up to Nokia Pedigree - and the competition beats it hands down in those areas.

If iPhone had a SIP client that would run in the background - it would probably cover my needs. But since it does not - I try to find ones that does. But with Nokia it seems like you have to read BETWEEN the lines to figure out what it CAN'T do (yet) - and not trust the consumer oriented marketing coming out of Nokia about the N900.

Sour grapes - yes - but Nokia needs to stop the N97 tactics before every first mover sits with an iPhone in their hands. (replace iPhone with "Android", "WebOS", "Windows Mobile 7(sic)") or they will have some pretty sad shareholders.