I don't think anyone is suggesting that Nokia should just kill Symbian and move on. People need to stop caricaturing the arguments of others, when disagreeing with them.

I do think Symbian will be increasingly demoted to the lower end of Nokia's product line and occupy the space of what was formerly feature phones and slowly be replaced. It will die a slow death.

Here's two articles about the Symbian Exchange and Exposition tradeshow that just happened:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technol...5875-21777860/
http://channel.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=20916

They both talk about how the mood was down. Developers are jumping ship for the iPhone and Android. Many complain Symbian is harder to develop for. Orders for applications on Symbian are drying up. Samsung and Sony-Ericsson are moving away from Symbian.

One developer even uses the "die" word himself: "I think Symbian is far behind…If there is no change in user friendliness, and opening of the environment, I think it will die – they have to react."

The only people who are positive are the Symbian foundation people and the Nokia marketing people, who of course have to be positive. Saying things like Symbian has an advantage because it was the first smartphone platform, as if because it was first means it can't die.