An ecosystem is more than just the store.

As I see it, it's the platform, the development tools, the developers, the existing working applications and the available methodology to install/purchase such applications, the ability to utilize tools and applications from other platforms, and it's the users and the phones the users use. In short, it's everything that a phone user can or has to live with.

As such, the recent move to Qt-centric development must say to have changed the Symbian ecosystem fundamentally, just now since the N8. But very few outside the developers have yet come to see or measure what this change means for the Symbian platform. Not even in a half year perspective. It's a change they've been working towards for two(?) years and just as it's reaching the market, it's being scrapped. While the developers, developers, developers still are only considering to start Qt development.

If we just look at the Ovi Store, I read somewhere here that the Ovi Store number of applications and downloads was increasing rapidly last year, and that it's already a major contender (despite the shittyness of it). I don't have any numbers for it, though.

Either way, it's a big ecosystem that's being replaced by a small ecosystem that is supposed to grow big.