Nokia has announced that it will cut 1800 jobs (probably that mess of middle management it accumulated as posted here:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=64000)

But also they announced that Symbian^4 is scrap for now, and that is all good news for us. Because they will begin to integrate all new technologies and updates into Symbian^3 (not called that anymore either, just Symbian), even UI changes.
Only Meego and Symbian will stay and development will happen ONLY on Qt and browser based (including HTML5).
That will probably mean that the same goes for Meego. Phones get to be updated/upgraded to a newer version of the OS.
Also Ovi will finally mean a proper app store accessible from every Nokia phone.

That's so what I always wanted from Nokia ever since my N95-8GB stayed behind an OS version and then my N900 was not supposed to get Meego etc.
Seems like the new management is talking the talk and walking the walk as well.

Here's the links:
http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/...her-for-users/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...312730760.html

That's great news

they have not really scrapped Symbian^4 they just changed upgrade strategy from ^3 to ^4+ and call it all just Symbian by having one continuous evolution and release new features and UI etc as soon as they become available
so in a way they will just bolt S^4 features on to S^3 until eventually its nothing but Symbian^4+
that opens the door to future Symbian features and UI to come to existing devices like the N8

it should of been this way from the start imo

It's not really a new strategy, I'm just glad they put it in simpler, clearer terms so as to avoid Gizmodo style talk of the death of Symbian etc.

This news should boost sales of the Symbian^3 devices by a great deal!

Finally they came into senses!!!!
Good for the new management. They gained my support

I'd like to know what exactly changes. I'm thinking that actually nothing but some labels for software revs and some dates? The roadmap is still the same, it has been for over a year, Qt is the common ground for MeeGo and Symbian, and has been for over a year now? Now Nokia can update ^3 os's to ^4 and beyond without big announcements?

I see this as a pr-stunt, the great masses had issues with all the different symbian versions and their app comaptibility? Surely the devs all understand what the limits were?

Nokia will unify all the hardware to the max? That is nothing new. I'm glad that the markets seem to embrace this as good news, but somehow renaming everything with simpler labels will create some problems for developers, Nokia still has many different hardware platforms... They won't update s60v5 phones to the newest Symbian and Qt so that they'll run the same apps as N8? And about simpler labels... We already have a mess with the phone names after the previous big simplification (XX-00, XX-01.. model numbers.. ugh).

Sorry xenconf, but you are answering yourself: probably.
My mind is very limited, but I can't see the good news for us.
We are discontinued. Period.

Exactly. It's just putting new spin to what has been on the roadmap post-S^3/Maemo 5.

EDIT: The one new and really big news is confirmation that Symbian phones will have full OS upgrades in future.

Not the OS, just the branding. Keep in mind that Symbian^4 was going to be the one with Qt as the primary UI.

I don't see anything about S40 getting dropped, but if it was that would be big news.

This was known even before Fremantle was released. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

labels are very important for some people and simple labels do seem to work for simple people, which is most, so in an effort to sell to most people this is a good thing.

i guess we should just expect more of this kind of stuff from nokia.

for the type of user that is here, we will just have to look behind the marketing and pr speak