I'm not claiming that the council has any inside knowledge; I've been following NIT development to know that asking such questions is a waste of time.

Instead, I'm trying to connect the dots. If no one is willing/able to provide open information to this open community, speculation is what we have left.

It's currently mid-April, and several major competitors will be releasing products in the next few months (FruitPhone 3, Pre, and even Nokia's own N97, depending on how you view "competition"). So Nokia would be well served to have an alternative available for purchase by the time those are out. Not just announced, but real, touchable product(s). If not, they stand to lose a generation of users who just in at this stage - it's much harder to move someone to a new platform later, after they've become comfortable on their Symbian/OSX/Pre/whatever device.

And if you're going to have new hardware, you need something more than just an OS for it, hence the mention of the developers' conference. And the developers will need to know some details about why they should care, right? If not, they'll just choose another, more "real" target for their efforts.

I recall others suggesting a beta version of Maemo 5 around the time of new Ubuntu release, which is next Thursday (sorry, can't remember where I saw this). And Nokia's just announced quarterly earnings, so the next few weeks will likely be used to announce new initiatives, to encourage investors.

So, I suspect something will be unveiled in 1-2 weeks, and shipping about a month after that. If I'm wrong, so what? It's been a better mental exercise (for me) than debating the merits of a $0.02 plastic stylus...