I think the biggest incentive to make this transition was the tie-in, and the upfront payments being made to Nokia to make the move to WP7. Symbian had no future because it had a tarnished reputation and lost credibility. With poor user perception, it would continue to decline and at best the updates would only slow the people leaving it. Nokia gains much more when it ties in with Microsoft ad's, it's own store, mapping, and other revenue sharing deals. It is the reason why Elop is saying he would love to see his WP7 competition also succeed because Nokia stands to make money from them as well without worrying that they will be stealing each others customers as in all likelihood the customer was a potential Android or iOS customer.

The decision to publicly announce the death of Symbian is up for debate. But as a consumer I am more happier for it because I know how long I can expect a Symbian phone to be supported, and I would purchase based on my feelings toward Symbian. Nokia is being honest and direct, no misinformation it is from the horses mouth. Now for them to expect to still sell 150 million Symbian phones is a bit far reaching maybe more like 80 million. But they will trim costs both in R&D and support, and remove a lot of employees ... so in 2013 they will be in a growth trajectory. Nokia of yesterday, today, and tomorrow are all different. Nokia today sees Symbian as an OS which is too costly to maintain, is an anchor, and has the clock run out on it. I think a lot people make the mistake at looking at Symbian in the perspective of Nokia's yesterday as if it had time to changed and molded but still garnering wide user fanfare. That is not the case anymore nor will it be for Nokia's tomorrow as it does not handle converging products at all. I too loved the OPK plan, but I loved that plan before it became Nokia strategy too late in the game. Late 2008 people were asking for such a strategy, they only came to it when it was too late. Staying the course with a plan that was not implemented fast enough was the problem Elop had, and WP7 was the remedy. Staying the course was the alternate option, but it had way more uncertainty and costs that would burden Nokia even more so. I think Elop is an ambitious guy, he does not want to be the guy who destroyed Nokia by bankrupting them nor does he want to be the guy who infamously handed the reigns of Nokia to MS. I think he wants to have the best CV/ Resume and state that he turned around Nokia from the brinks, he is a guy who dived head first into a company with massive challenges leaving the comfortably successful Microsoft Office division. He seems to thrive in a challenging position, he seems to communicate effectively and confidently. He can talk with employees and share some grievances that consumers have. He is the first non Nokia establishment CEO and flak is going his way like he is the anti-christ. I think people should calm down on him and think about how Nokia is being talked about, OPK wasn't getting that many criticism from this board based on his dithering incompetence ... it just goes to show people would rather keep the status quo by holding on to nostalgia of years gone rather than focus on the current situation.

To charge $600 on a slow Symbian E7 was ludicrous before the announcement of Symbian's death and was already a spoiler. One more reason does not make a difference. Besides the phone will be supported for 1 year plus the OS will live for another 5 years and so I would not be holding on to a phone from 2011 come 2016 that is for sure.

As far as strategy and execution are concerned I am also wary of Nokia's current predicament. With all eggs in the WP7 basket and Symbian thrown to the gutter like a cancer and MeeGo thrown into a skunkworks type of environment Nokia has to hit a homerun with WP7 and nothing short of that. They can't bleed for too long as they spent enough years bleeding already, but I wouldn't be too concerned at the stock price because as bad is it is Nokia won't go bankrupt someone will buy it or it will succeed with this strategy. Their still is value in the Nokia stock, so long as they execute this strategy going forward. The way to look at it is that with every new WP7 customer Nokia stands to win on services, and with every Nokia WP7 device sold it stands to win a customer from Android or iOS. Also keep in mind that Nokia was not making much through services from Symbian as it stands to make from WP7. The true number to watch for is the net added customer revenue. This is the number of people Nokia gains through WP7 services subtracting those it has lost from the Symbian side of services while keeping in mind that it would not be a 1:1 worth ratio. If this number is a plus then things are going well, if not then their is trouble to come.

Why, because Symbian has been around for a long time, but let's not ignore the facts of the situation.

Before Elop the plan for MeeGo and S^3/4 was QT. That was the new ecosystem. You think write once and run anywhere is easy? Ask Sun how that worked out for them. There is no way an ecosystem that still in the development stages could possibly be more advanced than Android / iOS who are firmly in the market.

Where QT goes is still TBD but the challenge for Nokia was, not only are they building two operating systems but also an additional abstraction layer for apps on top of both. I think it was just too much for them to handle given the competitive landscape. They couldn't develop it fast enough.

evolve or perish right? I still contend that what Nokia is looking for is not just a mobile OS but also a strong tablet one and Symbian does nothing for them there.

Their problem was that they were preparing both Symbian and QT for a competitive market was ultimately too much for them to do. At least that's what it seems like.

I don't disagree that its been a difficult transition. He chose the "ripping of the bandaid" approach. Whether or not it was the right way to go about it remains to be seen. There will be short term loss but you have to take a bit of a longer view on this one.

Unless Nokia can expect MS to inject more money over time, there's no revenue growth from this decision. The cash is like a band aid, not long term thinking.

If Nokia doesn't have the resources to maintain 3 OS's, then yes, they need to choose something to drop. WP7 and Android wouldn't require the same OS resources as Symbian and MeeGo, as they're being developed by MS and Google. WP7 and Android would be porting and maintenance.

I, personally, see Symbian as something intermediate for cheaper phones, which WP7 doesn't include. How does Nokia plan to address that issue, keep S40 forever? Move Symbian down to cheaper phones over time. No need to kill it... and your current source of revenue.

Except that I don't see what the long-term benefits of killing your own ecosystem and building up Microsoft's ecosystem. That is, unless you want to be HTC.

Combine this with the slow develoment of MeeGo, you wonder if there will be any customers left once it is ready for prime time.

I'm not happy about WONTFIXes at all, but that's a gross oversimplification and mis-characterization.

That's exactly what many Nokia employees kept clamoring for, self included, but OPK refused. I'll cut Elop slack for inheriting that.

On the upside for Microsoft, maaaaaan Nokia is getting cheaper to buy up. Going back to the car analogy, though, I'm pretty sure Nokia is worth more as parts than as the jalopy of a clunker it represents today.

I disagree. It's andemic to a culture that prefers to keeping closed-source close to the chest just enough so that the open-source hungry heathens will continue to purchase the next piece of hardware with the new OS on promises alone (promises of being better, being more open, etc.). You see it as a gross simplification, I see it as the consumer's biggest frustration. Even the ones that never came to ITT/TMO in all this time were frustrated that things were never fixed (i.e. family and friends I've known that bought their N8x0's because I had one.. and then suffered along with me and kept asking for fixes/improvments. To which--I had to relay the WONTFIXES and FIXED IN FREMANTLE and similar messages. They were more than simply annoyed. So was I, eventually.).

AT&T CEO "Windows Phone 7 Not Selling as Well as Hoped"...