what you must consider is before the n900 was widely known about as being in production nokia was marketing the N97 as a mobile computer too based purely on its form factor and active standby screen widgets.
so when you hear the words smartphone and mobile computer mentioned by nokia I'd take no notice b/c to me they cant differentiate the two themselves

EDIT: also i've heard nokia people say the N97 is not a smartphone, its a smartdevice.
so if nokia are not sure about there products you cant blame end users for having no idea.

Limiting Maemo to just the "high end" stuff is stupid. That's like saying, "If you want the shiny keys, then you gotta by the expensive sports car to get them." A large percentage of people just aren't going to be able to afford these "high end" devices that Nokia is wanting to limit this to. Heck, $400 was a lot for the n810. $600+ for the n900 is beyond ludicrous. Even when it comes down in price to half of what it is now, $300 for an n900 is going to be far, far too much. If they want wider and greater acceptance and penetration, they need to start dropping the starting price on devices like that to $300 or less at launch. Otherwise they eliminate too large a swath of the market.

It's like I've told others before, the $50 glass of lemonade might make you a lot of money in a hurry, but who's going to buy it? Only people with more money than they have sense. It's a well known fact that you don't make your money all in one big burst, but on volume. But stupid companies these days just don't see that. They like to see lots of fat zeros on their ledgers, and the only way to get those is with the $50 glass of lemonade. Of course, if the upper zeros are big, you can almost bet that the lower zeros won't be.

It's economics 101. Why can't companies see this? Sheesh.

I agree about not liking the strategy. But that's not the value of the article, to me. The value of the article is that Nokia has finally given us their definition of Symbian vs Maemo, and how they plan to market them. Just a few months/weeks ago, I was complaining about Nokia's rather confusing stance about what role Maemo plays in their strategy.

I think that stance is now clear. And I'm glad for that.

I don't think it's the best stance, but at least now we know what it is, and what role Maemo plays in it.

Personally... Maemo, while impressive, still ain't ready for primetime as a flagship OS.

Close, but not yet.

Hence... step 5?

That whole step 4 out of 5... talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

oh, it's you who's defining which price is right?

please stop this ******** now, lets see after the release if the price was really too high. now it's just bunch of nerds trying to act like experienced financial consultants (probably just because they can't afford the device)

your $400 for n810 is now something like $430, and when did the first price for a device last forever? what was n810's initial price?

i found this in 5 seconds:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=89457&postcount=14

I think it looks awesome so far - its ready to kick butt and take names. But maybe we should wait till its shipped to know for sure.

Oh this discussion about definitions leads to nowhere...

How people will use it will define it... mobile computer, mid, phone... Giving name to the beast always restricts the usage of the thing.

That's besides the point. The point is how Nokia perceives the device and the OS, and how will they market it. And that's what the article is about. Also based on dr. Jaaksi's interview, it seems that Nokia is still not willing to put Maemo in the front line, ahead of S60.