(I swear some day I'll write a post that isn't novel-length...but today is not that day, alas).

I hate to piss in your cornflakes, but the odds are good that Maemo will never become Nokia's point of focus (assuming of course that they have to chose one technology to be the point of focus; they are a large company, and fully capable of multi-tasking).

Nokia sells a ridiculous amount of phones. In fact, Nokia sells so many phones that the numbers are barely imaginable (the figure I see for 2008 was around 1.24 Billion...yes that's billion with a "B").

A rather large number of these phones run Symbian S60.

I don't work for Nokia (childhood dream notwithstanding), so my take on their strategy is as uneducated as most everyone else's on here; but I can say with pretty good certainty that they are not planning to have Maemo be a replacement for Symbian.

That isn't to say that if Maemo becomes a runaway success that they won't re-evaluate that decision, but I have to imagine that they don't consider that likely.

And the funny thing is that no one from Nokia is arguing that. Nokia seems to be making it a point to present the Maemo devices as an alternative. They have a long-term strategy, and they are executing on that strategy. The N900 represents the current phase of that strategy.

If you are reticent to get involved with Maemo due to fear of Nokia abandoning it; I think that's an unfounded concern. By all accounts, they will sell more N900's then they did N810's, and as the company seems to have a conservative goal in mind (rightly so based on a multitude of factors) I think it's safe to take the plunge.

As to whether Android will "get further faster"; yeah, most likely. Android is a good value proposition for a lot of manufacturers, and after a slow start, is finally starting to roll out into more and more devices. I see no reason not to believe that there will be more Android phones than Maemo phones. For starters, there are already a lot of Android phones (even with the small number of devices currently shipping), and that number will grow exponentially.

But so what...The beauty of the mobile economy is that it's not zero-sum. Someone else doesn't have to lose for you to win. Maemo may never eclipse Android in the realm of number of devices sold, but that doesn't negate its utility for the people who have them.

This board seems to be filled with people who believe that you'd have to be a ***** to not see that the Maemo phone (which isn't even out yet, by the way) is better than phone X. Hopefully, none of those people are working for a phone manufacturer, as the fallacious belief that your market share would be better if only customers weren't stupid and understood that you are better is a sure-fire recipe for unemployment (but at least you'd have more free time to post on your blog about how superior your technical choices are).

I think the folks with some sense seem to understand that phones are not all things to all people. Ultimately, they represent a series of choices and compromises, which if undertaken properly, will allow you to buy and use a device which works for you.

There is much to like about Maemo as a phone platform. There is much to like specifically about the N900 as phone. There are also things not to like about both. Nokia, thankfully understands this. I would be horrified if I read that they were abandoning Symbian on their phones to replace it with Maemo. They could pretty much kiss their market share goodbye with such a decision. I don't see that happening though; which makes me sleep better at night.