Nokia's problems are actually related to both the less-than-competitive hardware (esp. high-end) - physically, price-wise and with extremely limited choice - and to Nokia's repeated treatment of the enthusiasts and developers (aka the GEEKS!) by repeatedly abandoning both hardware and software platforms (before and apparently including the current N900).

I'm afraid the still long-awaited Symbian is getting crushed by the sheer volume of mid-range Android handsets and the developer and mindshare support that platform already has. And that tide just keeps growing while the new Symbian and supporting Nokia hardware remain nonexistent.

Meego, regardless of its Linuxian strengths, remains a small niche even on the Intel side (and can be expected to remain so until Intel's release of the truly power-efficient architectures in 2013).

Nokia isn't exactly helping Meego's growth on the ARM side of things...

The exact people Nokia desperately needs on the Meego-on-ARM train are the very same geeks (developers and enthusiasts!) Nokia has been repeatedly and successfully been pissing off over the last three years.

A lot of these geeks and opinion leaders can take one slap in the face like a man, but two or even three times is simply too much.

Geeks know a good thing when they see one. Blowing $400-500 on a device (maybe more than once) that is supposed to open (but turns out that neither hardware nor software actually are open) and gets abandoned without even the most crucial security updates (due to the closed nature) after just one year or even less... Many feel that the goodness of that deal got lost somewhere along Nokia's decision-making chain.

Some believe that there can't be a thriving applications ecosystem without hordes of consumers. Possibly, but Nokia's management appears to share your belief that geeks aren't necessary to make that software ecosystem happen.

I'm not going to bet on Nokia's approach though. And you can bet I'm going to be extremely cautious before plunking money into Nokia products again based on their promises.