here is a good read about their strategy http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Tec...hite_paper.pdf
The Nokia N900, based on Maemo 5, is aimed at technology enthusiasts and offers the full Internet with no comprise, the ability to multitask and a new user interface including the panorama desktop. In all areas we want to provide the industry leading experience, to this end, we are including market leading experiences, such as a Mozilla based browser, Microsoft Exchange email integration, and our own Ovi services. Maemo is an advanced Linux based computing platform. It uses the standard Linux Kernel 2.6 - not a proprietary mobile Linux kernel - and other standard upstream open source components. In developing Maemo, we have worked in and with leading open source projects; in fact, over 80% of Maemo code is comprised of upstream open source software. What we add is our expertise in user experience, user interface, hardware and services integration.