Something's really strange here. I remember a presentation by Ari Jaaksi, telling us that work on the N800 had already started when I bought my 770 in early 2006. This way, they managed to get out a new hardware pretty soon. - If they start working on the N900 only now that the N800 has long reached the end of its life cycle, this is really a change of - ah, strategy.

The current (expected) schedule makes me believe there was a time when Nokia didn't plan to continue the platform at all, therefore not actively developing a successor to the rapidly ageing N8x0 in time. They obviously (thank god!) changed their minds, but they're faaar behind now.

The thing I'd hope for is a OS2008-based N900 that will be upgraded once Maemo5 is ready, but I don't see this happening: It would be impossible to get this across in marketing. ("We got a great new device here! Can't do more than the old one, but, really, trust us, we will upgrade it in a few months!" - Would you buy this as a journalist?)

Maybe they manage to keep the crowd happy by "announcing" the N900 very early, then waiting months for it to become available. (Like they did with the N810WE, a device that could well be called vaporware meanwhile.)