The N9 is clearly supposed to fail. They'll build a minimal number released in limited areas with minimal promotion and support. Then Elop and his honchos can use it's pre-ordained failure as more justification for sellling out to MS and WP7. I can hear him now..."Well, we built a really nice MeeGo phone but it failed miserably to generate buzz and sales. Obviously no one cares about MeeGo."

IOW Elop is only releasing the N9 to build justificatiion to abandon MeeGo entirely. An intentional fail inspite of nice hardware and a great OS. Because MeeGo - aka Linux - is a mortal enemy to Elop, Ballmer, M$ - and of course WP7.