It is clear that if you are simply a windows phone hardware manufacturer the profit margins are going to be very very small. The only way Nokia will be able to get remotely close to its current level of profits from symbians massive sales is by totally killing R&D budget and by laying off tons of staff. On a human level none of us should see this as a good solution. Even after killing R&D and cutting jobs I still don't see how Nokia is going to profit much from this. People here always say Nokia makes great hardware but really what does that mean? I think they are great in call reception (and the continued sales of the iphone 4 also shows that people are not that bothered by such things). In what other way can we say Nokia are great in hardware? Certainly not in looks. The HTC Desire has been out for ages and yet looks a million times better than the N8 which just came out. The N900 looks like a black brick. Some may like that but not the mass market. Windows Phones 7 are all the same in terms of functionality. So how many would really look at a Nokia W7 phone and pick it over those from HTC or Samsung. Apart from fanboys I suspect very very few.