I'd have thought success in the markets frequented by Nokia and Apple would be determined by sales, and not by an ephemeral notion such as differentiation. Nokia can and is a huge organisation, but unless their devices appeal to the mass market - which is unquestionably the case with Apple products - then Nokia will not achieve great success with NITs. Fact, freight train or not - you can't make people buy what they don't want.

Nokia are clearly taking their time to get it right, but by the time they achieve Step 5 of their plan the competition will have a user base in the tens of millions, with the ecosystem (applications and accessories) to cater for those users, and iPod (and/or iPhone) will become synonymous with "mobile internet web surfing" just as iPod has displaced Walkman for "audio on the move". "You want mobile internet?" "Buy an iPod" Most people won't even think twice or consider an alternative, the brand and marketing is _that_ strong and effective.

Nokia faces an uphill struggle to compete for sales against Apple - just look at Microsoft and the Zune, is this going to be Nokia NITs in future? The Zune appeals to a few people, it differentiates itself from Apple products, but it doesn't come close to matching Apple sales.

I know we're not comparing Apples with apples here, and that you firmly believe in the goodness of the open approach followed by Nokia (as do I) but with my shareholder hat on it's beholden on Nokia to make the Internet Tablets a sales success (which they are not, yet) and the slow, plodding approach only allows the competition to dominate a market that could have been Nokias. Will Nokia ever regain the ground they have already lost? I have my doubts.

Having said that, I'm warming to the N810 and can see some appeal in it's design although the price is somewhat off putting, particularly when you factor in the additional licence cost for GPS routing.

I think 2008 will be a very interesting year for Nokia NITs, Intel MIDs and above all Apple iPhone/Touch mkII.

Progress needs to be made by Nokia in 2008 (step 4) and with luck Nokia can capitalise on the marketing blitz that will follow the release of the Intel MIDs, ensuring further success in 2009 (step 5).

But Nokia and (perhaps even Intel MIDs) will always be of minority interest to the *GENERAL PUBLIC*, as I simply can't see Apple losing the plot with their iPhone/Touch devices in the near future, and a "tablet in every hand" will most likely remain a Nokia pipe dream.