I think it is easier to stick to the truth. Nokia couldn't make Symbian or MeeGo competitive vs Android or iOS. Regarding Symbian that is all too obvious. Personally I like Symbian a lot and think it is just perfect, I don't mind clunkyness. But still today after 4-5 years of modernizing, it is not competitive against iOS and Android when the clunkyness-factor is taken into consideration. MeeGo is also too obvious, maybe in 4 years it will be OK. Harmattan (Maemo) I am not so sure. The N900 is no more clunky than my brand new Anna E6. The N9 UI looks nothing less than awesome, but the N9 is here no matter what happens to plan A.

Nokia saw no other alternative than going WP or Android. They chose WP because that was a better deal than Android. We will never know all the details, but MS surely has loads of money, and WP will always be "higher end" than Android. MS will keep on hammering until WP is the best OS overall. Then there is S40. Going WP allows Nokia to steam ahead with S40 and the S40 ecosystem (Ovi). This is all Nokia, and it is steaming ahead right now, growing like no other ecosystems. Android would eat into that as well.