It doesn't matter what Elop says in his politician's tone of voice, if the fact is that the N9 sold better than the Lumias so far, then all those millions of marketing dollars trying to promote the L800 and L710 were a shameful waste, when the N9's success was mainly down to the most effective and cheapest form of marketing in the world: Word of Mouth.

I splashed out $550 for mine. It's unsubsidized, not available in the stores, not even available from Nokia themselves. It wasn't subsidized with a network contract. But I got one, and why did I get it? Because I read dozens of reviews online, all of which said (apart from the whole missing apps thing) it was awesome, awesome and awesome. And now I have it, I know those reviewers were right. It is awesome.

My hope now is that after this 'phase' of needing to invent a "war of ecosystems" has passed by, Nokia can get back to doing what it did best: making quality hardware with original and innovative software. I have just that, sitting on my desk right now.