iball,

I think you miss the point,

You and I are clearly committed geeks, and I agree that it is cool being able to hack perl and python whilst stood up at the back of a bus, but there is probably insufficient world demand for hand held compilers to justify onward development of a minority plaything.

Nokia will be more encouraged to continue development of the N800 if they see commercial success, to get that success they need to grab a share of the real PDA/ small form factor laptop market, they ain't gonna get that without the normal suite of "productivity" apps ie a PIM and and MS office compatibles.

Now I want the N800 to succeed, because then I will get all the goodies that I want, more real memory, better peripheral support etc, but I won't get any of that if the N800 goes down the pan because it is a commercial failure. That is why it is important that Nokia make the N800 more mainstream.

I don't totally disagree with what you say about Palm's last 5 years, although I know several folks who think the Treo is fantastic. Palm's main problem would seem to re-inforce my point, if they are sinking it's because they cannot make their latest devices a commercial success.

So I think what I am saying is, come on Mr Nokia now build on an good hardware platform and add some interoperability smarts that will give the N800 genuine customer appeal