The only part of the story that I can't understand/can't believe is that they only truly acknowledged that MeeGo wasn't ready in januari.
If that really is the case, than the entire development process was not managed well at all.

I love Linux, Maemo 5 and the N900. I also think that Qt is very promising and it does a lot of things really well, BUT I honestly believe that a lot of these technologies just aren't in a ready enough state to be used by mass market general public and smaller app developer companies.

Comparing current Symbian, Maemo and MeeGo software and SDK releases to the iPhone and Apples SDK and you will come to the conclusion that you need a LOT more knowledge of the internal workings of the systems to develop applications for the Nokia platforms.
And that is a huge problem when you try to persuade developers to make applications for the S60v5/Symbian^3 and Maemo/MeeGo platforms.

Comparing to Android and its SDK is a mixed bag. Some things are easier, others are not. WebOS is the same story (but different things are harder/easier).

I haven't used Windows Phone 7 and don't use Windows ( trying the SDK is a bit difficult). So I can't comment on that. I hope for Nokia that it truly is ready and can compete with iOS. If it isn't than I don't see how this situation is any better than going for MeeGo (No install base and a platform and development tools that need a lot of work).