Let me make it clear....I have been a Nokia owner since 1996 and have loved most of their handsets and it was with great sadness and torment to end my loyalties with Nokia as I could no longer put up with Nokia's incompetencies to compete with the market leaders!

I've seen nothing to even hint that Nokia shelved plans to release and fully support Maemo 6 on the N900 due to the merger into MeeGo. I don't believe such a plan ever existed.

Beyond the codename itself, little information about Harmattan was public prior to Maemo Summit 2008. It was at that Summit, when community developers were just getting information on the general architecture of Fremantle for the first time, that Nokia began talking about Harmattan as the great thing that lay beyond.

That 2008 Summit also marked a peak in community frustration with Nokia. The announcement that Fremantle wouldn't be made available for N8x0 devices hit hard, and a few good developers, important enough to be brought to the Summit on Nokia's dime, left in disgust. Had Nokia plans to bring Harmattan to the upcoming "Maemo 5 lead device", that would have been a good time to do it. "With the Internet Tablets, we've been leaving old devices behind when the next big thing arrives. Due to a performance jump and a lack of cellular data hardware, we're forced to do that again with Fremantle. Sorry. We've learned though, and it won't be happening again. Maemo 5 devices will be upgradable to Harmattan." Nope.

By Maemo Summit 2009, MeeGo talks with Intel must have been underway, but that wasn't announced. A few details of the Harmattan hardware platform were announced though, and overall, they sounded quite similar to the N900s that were handed out--except for the shift to a capacitive, multitouch display. Was it, "Don't worry though, the Harmattan UI is fully usable without multitouch, and an upgrade will be available for the N900"? Nope. Paraphrasing, it was: "Supporting both resistive single-touch and capacitive multitouch would be hard in a UI."

The MeeGo announcement didn't doom the N900. MeeGo just put a new, shiny coat of paint on the already approaching Harmattan release to make it more noticeable. Good or bad, what was, is, just under a new name.

If anything, the merger to MeeGo and corresponding tie to the Linux Foundation may benefit the N900, but that's another discussion.

Telling us that the 'n900 and maemo 5' was nothing compared to its succesor/next iteration before its launch was another masterstoke by Nokia.

We knew last year this time that Maemo 5 was going to be replaced by Maemo 6. So at that point we knew Maemo 5 was still born, the shift was happening with or without MeeGo.

I think Nokia's biggest fault was not saying in advertising that the N900 is basically a developer edition and not for traditional end users. Most people leaving want an iPhone or Android device because they are "Phones" first with normal phone features implemented.

I also think Nokia has the best plan for "mobile computers" out of it's competitors. As much as we hear about MeeGo - Nokia has been working on Maemo 6 for over a year.

You can't tell me everyone on this forum wouldn't go crazy if the the next Nokia device had a dock to allow it to be connected to a keyboard, mouse or monitor to be used as a nano desktop yet mobile.

Heh. Given you are a company delivering a new mobile device--and an improved software release to drive it--approximately once a year--and given you're working to increase the openness of your software development process--getting more open source developers involved earlier and working upstream at all times--what's your suggested alternative?

I would focus on the merits of the device/platform itself. Promising something for the future doesn't sound like company resources are going to be supporting current device. And indeed, this proved to be the case.

love the phone, love the community support, love the os bugs and all.. sounds like most people are a bit ticked at being abandoned by nokia and the possibility of falling back on a manufacturer supported os. i know i am. has anyone twittered the neuter from nokia asking him to at least read comments on this forum?

Same feelings here, n900 is awesome if you're a C/C++ developer else its below average.

I'm willing to give Nokia one last chance before I jump ship forever.. Instead of buying the next Nokia Meego device (with slideout keyboard) on release day, I'll wait for non-fanboy reviews.

If that device and OS gets trashed by objective reviews, I'm not turning back.....

I would concentrate on the software and make sure those early supporters and developers were loved, that you gave them everything they needed to support one software before you pull the rug and support in favour of another FAD. At the VERY LEAST you do a total and equal amount of support to cover what the development community do. That way you don't look like junk to the world and it's dog and everyone looking to buy into it later on, lots of people come on here, read people saying good bye and thanks for all the fish. They don't see a happy developers community being loved by Nokia, so they won't buy in later on.

You as a company make sure that every piece of software you as the company are responsible for is fully supported at all times, like Ovi maps, Ovi suite, Ovi store. So that when you actually release something it works, allowing developers a fair crack at the whip. Not hamstringing them with a turkey from the get go.

You won't get more open source developers on board if you don't even match their effort. Get OVI in all it's named areas working as an "AT least." benchmark before you move onto the next new thing.

And as a second but equaly important point. Make sure your new software does what every other manufacturers in the market can do (MMS, custom ring tones, word editing etc), or you fight a losing battle of catch up. 6 months to get half written and under performing basics. Others are doing it bigger, better and faster, so you will never catch up and Nokia are not catching up. So where do developers go, the "nice easy business model with customers", or the "mess and no support" Nokia?

That is the suggested alternative.

Linux 2.odd and Linux 2.even. I assure you that Maemo Summit 2008 was not a marketing effort targeting regular retail customers. It was a completely non-glossy developer event. That's a different audience.