I think Nokia buying Palm would be a good choice, assuming all 3 options were left on the table. It's pretty clear in a global market that consumer tastes are hardly universal. I think the analyst makes a good point that in areas where the iphone is doing well, a nokia/webos device would be an attractive alternative. His failure is in assuming that market is worldwide - when we know for a fact that Apple can't give that POS away in the Asian markets.

Maemo sets the bar for real computing on a mobile handset. I can multitask, x forward, script, etc. on my handheld. Nothing else comes close.

And Symbian of course leads the worldwide market. Dropping it in favor of anything would be idiotic. Nokia knows what Symbian's current weakness is, and from what I can tell is addressing the issue nicely.

At any rate, my point is that a worldwide smartphone leader didn't get there by offering limited options.