Hello, other guy. Other guy here... If it turns out you are right I will:

1_ Eat the magnet from my N800 back lid, as promised. (If anyone can find it for me.)

2_ I will say: "Dude, you were right all along, I am sorry to question you totally sensible news. And I should have known better that Nokia can always come up with some new way to disappoint me".

Because mine are the encouraging words: that Nokia will simply release one new device (1GHz Cortex-A8 developed last year and running some kind of Linux), but to everyone, even if focusing on developers at first. Just like it did with all previous NITs.

Your words are very discouraging for me. If it is just me who thinks this would be an insane move, than I say that here already: "It is just me! Nothing new, I was an outlier from the Gaussian's tail one more time."

They are still selling the N900 out there (you probably don't know this, since you have tons of in-development devices for you to use), and you really think they would miss the chance to _sell_ this?

Imagine this dialog:
Non-developer consumer: "Hello Nokia, I have 500 euros and I would like to purchase this Cortex-A8-with-Linux phone you just released because I like Jessie's Girl. Gimme."
Nokia: "Are you nuts? I don't want your money! This is just for developers who will develop stuff for a phone that we may or may not release some months from now!"

Sorry, I think this contradicts basic business principles. And Nokia is a master at releasing outdated hardware as if it were totally cool new stuff... Once it's on the street, the selling machine turns on and does its job.

A phone may be designed "for developers" or "for consumers". But once a company has warehouses filled with a products, the sellers can't give a **** about all this. It's about selling it, putting it on the street. If people want to purchase it, for the asked price, to use as paperweights, door holders, dildos, or maybe to disassemble and use the pieces for something else, they will sell it!!! Why wouldn't they?

How does giving the device exclusively for developers helps them? How is that strategic? How could that attract more developers, for example, or make more "consumers" get attracted by the next "consumer" device?

Do you know Occam's razor?... I just think your theory is too complicated, and "the simpler explanation" beats it.

I totally believe this upcoming Cortex-A8-running-Linux device is "for developers", but just in the same way all previous Maemo devices were "for developers" too, but were sold to everybody like any regular product.

The device is totally salable. It doesn't matter if the CPU is old and even if the packages are .deb instead of .rpm (sinful words for developers). If the thing is shiny and runs angry Birds, it's a potential "iPhone killer".

There could be an issue like this: they could be afraid that selling too much of these right now could hurt selling more of the following device. That would only be a problem if the next device were something very lucrative. But selling old hardware for a contemporary price is a quite lucrative deal... As long as it is sold.

We know very little about how many N900 were sold, and also about the other NITs... But we did hear that they always performed satisfactorily, and sold beyond expectations. We don't know what were the planned and the resulting developer/consumer ratios of the buyers. I don't think any Nokia executive ever got sad to hear that a N900 was bought by a non-developer. Why would any Nokia person be angry that someone they didn't plan to buy one of their products did it? That is always good news!!...

Any way, I am done with that. There is no deny there is something attractive about the idea that there is a "developer device" and a following "consumer device". Kids will love think that and I can't fight it, because the way I put things is less exciting. If that turns out to be true I will respect you a lot, other guy, and if you tell me the world will end tomorrow I will believe, and I will also be very happy about being a non-entrepreneurial engineer instead of a businessman.