Meaning they went into direct competition with HTC and Samsung six months before they had a product to offer and with no counter-OS to mitigate their risk. As a CEO it was an utterly horrendous decision. At the very worst he should have shut his mouth about killing Symbian and MeeGo until they had a WP lineup launched. More responsibly he should have kept Symbian and MeeGo and licensed Android too.

I mean the whole argument is that Nokia were good at hardware not software so why go the unilateral exclusivity route? You only go with a single OS if you think it's the best and you own it outright. If you're expertise is the best hardware than you sell the most by having it work with the most software.

It's hilarious as everyone here assumes once they got the news that everybody got the news. Sorry to break it to you, but you are the freak Nokia doesn't give a **** about. Yes you knowledgable person consider yourself a freak. You have close to zero impact on Nokia sales. If not zero in fact. Good luck with that and such reasoning

Dude, step away from your keyboard, you don't know what the f*ck you're talking about.

IMO WP is hell of a lot more suited for the general public than anything Nokia has managed to produce. Symbian Belle is also hell of a lot better than Maemo in that respect.

The N800 is a nice idea, but a poorly executed one. The iPod of the same time was better in almost all respects important for the general public.

Nokia/MS can still make WP competitive, the battle is not lost, but time is running out, and they are trying to sell Lumias as if they could be compared head to head with iPhone and Androids. They have lost focus - again. The focus should solely be to make WP competitive, and this should be done by flooding the market with cheap Lumias, not premium priced Lumias. The L800 is nice, but the value in the hand of mr general public is much lower than a similarly priced Android. The reason for this discrepancy in value is not that WP is a poor OS, or that "people hate MS". The reason is lack of apps - mainly, expensive apps secondly, and the spec-focus on high end Androids (multiple cores, huuuge AMOLED displays etc) together with the "ROM-cult" that has grown around Android. One more thing is starting to rise it's head, updates to WP8. All the Lumias could be outdated within a few months.

Everybody hates MS. Right? Wrong!!! People dislike MS (Windows on PC) because of all the idiosyncrasies and troubles, but ultimately Windows is the OS that is/was perceived as the one that added most value - by far, and it still is. Everybody loves to hate MS, is more correct. The exact same thing can be said about Android today. Everybody loves hating Android because it is nothing but a piece of Google spy ware directly connected to everything you do. Ultimately though, Android injects every phone with Value that people know to appreciate more than they dislike Google.

I have lived long enough to see that marketing and fashion only goes so far. To be a success a device has to add value. Value means different things to different people. The very basic is a fluent and smooth OS, without that there is no chance, and of course the phone basics has to be there. Then, in general, value comes in four chunks: Apps, specs, updates and looks/design.

For instance, comparing the similarly prices L800 and a SGSII. The SGSII lacks somewhat in looks/design but soars in apps, specs and updates (ICS and tons of "ROMs" from devs). The L800 scores in looks/design and that's it. That's the cold hard truth, for every L800 sold, at least 10 SGSII are sold (probably many more). The only way for the L800 to be competitive is to cut the price because the SGSII adds much more value. On top of that apps are more expensive on WP.

Nokia/MS could already be going strong with WP/Lumia, but they lost focus. The L800 could be a best seller if the price was in accordance with the relatively low added value of the device. That would make the ball rolling regarding apps, which in turn would add value etc etc. Instead they lost the entire European market. In the US, the L900 is priced right, but it could be too little too late.

You're so wrong you're raging hard wrong, Specc. The N800 was a good idea that could have been executed better, but it was still executed pretty well for its time--and even in comparison to anything Windows Mobile related, it was BOTH suited better *AND* selling better at the time. Nokia had POTENTIAL with Maemo at the time and then decided to suddenly shift gears and hop up and down and go, 'OOH! OOH! We can be like iPhone too! LOOK! It's a phone!' instead of concentrating on making a better Maemo experience. But NOTHING on the Windows side EVER came close to being good enough for the general public. Microsoft has been at the tablet form factor for WELL OVER 10 years (15?) and STILL failing miserably.

heheh.. Windows Mobile 2012 is still Windows Mobile CE 1999 for all it matters.

And we have a winner for:

Dumbest Comparison of the Week

Just a track record on my impact on Nokia sales for the past 3 years (and they used to get more recommendations from me prior to that):

I bought:

- Two N900s,
- One white N9
- One black 16GB N9 (as a gift)
- One E7 (as a gift)

All of them within months of their release while their ASP was quite high, if not the highest in the recent Nokia history. Further, because of my suggestions to friends & family and direct influence, Nokia got the following sales:

- One C7
- Two E7s
- Two N8s
- One N9
- Four N900s

Granted, Samsung also sold three SGS2s and Apple sold two iPhone 4, one iPad 2 and one iPad 3 due to my suggestions, but Nokia did overwhelmingly better. They lost a couple of Lumia sales along the line, tho, but I really cannot recommend WP7 to anyone (I have an Omnia 7 and I did spend a great deal of time trying to like the WP7 with no success) - people that I would deem the suitable demographics for the WP7 are way better off with the iPhone. Way better off!

Yes, I'm just one person and in the grand scheme of things those sales are truly insignificant, but how many 'tech heads' out there you think there are whom get asked on a regular basis what to buy by their less techy friends & family? And that is not to include my voluntary advocating over the interwebs that might or might influence sales as well. You really think that people like us don't matter for the total sales in the end?

wp7 handsets have always been dirt cheap, even before the android dual core onslaught. Nice wp7 hardware existed before (omnia 7).

i wonder why people don't buy it then. I am not saying wp7 is a bad OS, but as the average guy who goes to the store I wouldn't buy a wp7 handset because its so different from what people are used to. Where's the app grid? Whats with all the huge fonts? Where are the homescreens? Widgets? No tabs? Side scrolling instead of drill-down etc..

Even Meego feels more familiar. In addition wp7 is not for the hardcore users out there, it doesn't display enough information (see arstechnica critique), and the multitasking is just too bad for that. Apart from the missing apps of course.

That said, I'm sure those who actually buy it are perfectly satisfied.

You talk like you are sitting at the Nokia Board of Directors: Detached from what's going on in the real world. We are Nokia and we are the best because we are Nokia and we are best because.... Please tell the rest of the board that Nokia has to wake up, focus and deliver.

The N800 is cluncketiclunk regarding the UI. The N9 is actually nice (except the lagging and poor to no customization possibilities). As a tablet Swipe would work much better than the N800. That is not the problem. The problem is the N9 is not competitive against the Androids or iPhones. It is not even competitive against Symbian Belle. Belle is good, relatively speaking, and the N8 (a two year old phone) is outselling the N9, and so does the E6. You can say that people don't want WP (Lumia), but there is one thing they don't want more, and that's the N9.

Windows CE has never been a complete OS out of the box. It has been a set of libraries and source for anyone to build a OS to their likings. As such it has been extremely popular for all sorts of devices, GPS in particular. There still is very few if any "better" alternative out there for screen-centric devices. Android would probably? work, except it would suck the batteries dry within minutes.

WP is built on a solid core, that's for sure, and it can be seen from the smoothness of the UI. If (correction - when) the prices of Lumia 800/900 come down, I will probably get one. Right now I see no value there for me.