From a business standpoint, what choice did they really have?

- continue with Symbian. With the rate of market share loss it it would be single digits marketshare in 4 years
- focus on Meego. Chances are, the team on meego are the same team on Maemo. The team did not have the experience/prosessionalism to produce a finished/polished produce for mass market.
- If Meego failed (unpolished produce, 3rd party devs not adopting it) the company would be in dire dire trouble because of Symbian adoption rates
- go with Android, Google would probably not provide any special support.. treating them the same as motorola,HTC etc

If the Maemo team had taken the effort to produce a polished N900, i think the decision to go full bore with Meego would have been a no brainer.