Android is linux. It was done before Nokia did the N900. Nokia were copying to try and grab market %

I think the issue is, if it failed then support dries up and Nokia move on. Like anything that doesn't sell you ignore it and move on.

Vista died because of IBM not buying into it, when the worlds largest company says no you need to think why. Other large scale business' followed suit. There was device driver issues from all sectors because it didn't have the hardware tech checks prior to launch (MS announced this after launch), lack of MS understanding of the market, the hardware requirements being a big step up and too big for most people (even law suits in california because MS lied). Nothing to do with end users hating it as well. Even a MS director refused to upgrade his company laptop to Vista, his email explaining this was leaked.

Windows 7 is actually windows 6.1, (If you look at the source code) so it really is Vista with add ons. Most of those add ons were nicked from Linux (snap is from mandriva 2008 etc) And people accepted it because hardware cycles across the globe skipped Vista, so large scale business's were left with a choice, stay on XP and have MS cut support, continue the buggy and crap Vista or make the upgrade.

I am interested though, Maemo is 2 steps ahead???

It is a basic linux distro on a phone. It is the same as Android but you can jail break it and use it, something Google locked down to reduce the amount of messing that goes on inside. The kernel is the same as every other linux kernel, it is still just Linux and that puts it right back to the same basic logic as Android (upto 2.1 when they split off the kernel tree), Ubuntu, mandriva etc. What Nokia did was code it to a small black box, nothing more, and they didn't do that very well. Android is in version 2.2 now and still only Android. Maemo is on version 1.3 and now there is Meego 1.1. Google stuck it out and worked well to get it out there, even with their decision to split from the linux tree (which might be reversed.)Nokia failed at the first hurdle because the N900 did pants in the markets and then changed their minds to try another linux distro.

It isn't two steps, it is another direction from the same starting point.