Well, actually a more accurate quote says "The initial release of Tizen is targeted for Q1 2012, enabling first devices to come to market in mid-2012" - so you are at least partially right.

It means that they from day 0 aren't locking down the core like with Dalvik. That is reason for optimism in my book. All in all this is another bout of bad news for the Qt advocates at Nokia, but at least it's not completely abandoned yet.

1) HTML5 apps should be pretty portable. Any decent browser would want to drive them. Infact, that should eliminate the reason to buy an expensive smartphone.

2)
Microsoft released Windows Embedded CE in 1996. It got revamped into Windows Mobile in 2003, and then they swapped it for Windows Phone 7 in 2010. While buying and failing the Kin.

Samsung also released it's first Samsung Bada phone in 2010.

In one year, Samsung has managed to pass the market share of Windows on cell phones. I don't think you should underestimate the power of Samsung. Btw, didn't Apple and Google also manage to pass Microsoft@phones in about that long?

In all this, it's kind of amusing that Nokia has managed to stake all it's future on the one company that has proven that more than anyone, they're okay with failing the cell phone market. Oh, and even Steve Ballmer said in his interview recently - paraphrased - that Windows Phone was Nokia's problem, not his. At least Intel know they will die an IBM death if they don't break through on hand held computing soon.

With the number of cell phone OSs that has been closed down recently, and the recent Android uncertainty, there is no wonder that Samsung want a solid alternative. They're the new Nokia, and will not want to be 100% dependent on someone else/uncommitted to build the OS. Only idiots want that.