If they continue on Elop way they will surely sell less. But buying Nokia means also buying innovative stuff, like harmattan. And cashflow from PR is hard to account for. If they go U2 way opening embedded systems through GNU they will chop iOS/android tree easily. Who will keep producing java devices once you get free access to source and have ability of using 100% of the device? Quad core providers will not be happy, but chinese producers would gladly provide better systems and GNU never stopped them

Supporting 4 OSes works that way. You hire 4 times more people than Apple for example, and considering yearly costs in Billions for one OS... you can tell the rest

Not with open source.
Supporting linux based OS is very cheap. Others are doing the job. Only problem is that you can't sell the operating system but thats not a problem for Nokia.

Windows Phone is a spectacular failure already. And don't get me wrong I like the OS. But it's an OS that got 9 handsets at launch (14 today), 3 out of 6 top smartphone manufacturers plus Dell (2nd biggest pc manufacturer), is backed by Microsoft and has managed to sell less than Samsung's bada which appeared in one phone and it's successor.

I don't know if windows and IE are poisonous brands or if windows mobile was so crap that destroyed next generation sales (even the version numbering is too close. Nobody with experience in WinMo where almost nothing changed between 2 and 6 will believe that a lot changed between 6.5 and 7) but windows phone is the worst smartphone launch ever.

You can't compare it to android or iOS in numbers. Apple had never made a phone before and it was not sold in most markets and was constrained to one operator.

The G1 was made by a relatively unknown then HTC. HTC had only WM offerings until then - WM was notoriously buggy but not everyone knew about OSes then some surely attributed the bugginess to the manufacturer.

The G1 never appeared in most markets. Even the magic a year later was overpriced (it had the same price as N97/N900 and i8910, massively superior phones) and not widely marketed.

It is very probable by the numbers pubished that even the N900 itself outsold all WP handsets, while they were simultaneously on the market.

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Apart from the WP failure, Nokia had what all the manufacturers want. They had control of the ecosystem. They had revenues from ads and maps and apps. They had the ultimate possibility to customize look and feel. Box movers like dell have about 2% profit margins. All-in-ones like apple have massively bigger profit margins. That's why IBM sold the pc business, that's why HP tried to do it. Samsung want their own OS so that they can have that control now that Google is starting to shorten the leash on android customisation.

Samsung didn't manage to jump to the top of the manufacturers by moving android boxes. They pursued a multi-platform strategy to please everyone. Apple did that (briefly) by controlling the whole system tightly and by delivering world class experience to it's users plus sexy hardware and awesome marketing.

Nokia had the best of both worlds, and that is what kept it at the top for so many years. Control of the system, vast options in price, form factor, features, and market target. Now they ditch that for one option (iPhone weakness) and no differentiation from other manufacturers (android weakness).

Where will all the E-Series users go? (the E-series were on par with the blackberries in units sold each and every quarter) Now even microsoft admits that WP is not business oriented (That is probably why WM still outsells WP)

Where will all the cheap smartphone users go? Lumia 710 is just on the minimum WP specs and it is still about double the price of the cheap symbian phones.

And finally all WP's look and feel exactly the same. Maybe some will fall for the polycarbonate, but the differentiation is minimal. Where is the gaming WP? Where is the ultra high res WP? Where is the supercamera WP? The max specs that microsoft forces on manufacturers are so obsolete and so near the minimum that all phones are almost the same 1ghz - 1.5ghz, 8gb - 16gb, 5mp - 8mp (with one exception) are all the differences between 14 WP models.

Look at the press about L800 and N9. They are essentially the same thing HW wise (nfc is crippled and the front camera is useless on the N9 so specwise they are about the same - L800 has less memory but the faster cpu balances the scale). But the N9 got raving reviews, the L800 got "ok another WP" reviews. And that is true, I have not one reason in the world to replace my year old Optimus 7 (that I bought at 200euros unsubsidized) with a Lumia 800 costing 530 euros.

I think that yes, the signs are here that WP is failing and the signs were there that IOS and android were growing. None of them skyrocketed the first year, but they didn't actually decline!

Sorry for the essay, but I think there are some useful facts in there even if you don't share my opinion

Microsoft don't need PR and they certainly don't want bad PR. When a company is that big as Microsoft is then I think the big problem is how to stay big without making customers too angry. They have monopoly on the PC

Based on that Canonical is run for free. The word support entails few things which are not cheap. Elop's idea of one OS is based mostly on cutting few billions from fail OSes(in his appraisal) and concentrating on something that will bring billions in the end (endless funding by m$ helps). But sure, we can afford developing 4 OSes - that is hopefully history

And that is only chance for maemo, making their CEOs aware that undercutting iOS/android with gnu project is both harmful to their competitors while at the same time being awesome to the public

MeeGo Harmattan is just a thin layer over linux, it is NOT an OS that has been developed by Nokia.
Same with Android, it's just a layer over the linux core.

What Nokia needs to do and what they have done is to make the first graphical layer to work, they have the power to make it fly. When that is done, you are going to have a lot of people that are willing to participate. I have checked some of the code and it isn't that hart to work with

What layer are you talking about??? Maemo IS linux. Bit outdated libs (libglib/libstdc++/...) but linux, unlike android vm. Try downloading source and 'make'ing anything on those (sdk repo required, but out of the box anyway, for Fremantle at least). Still support entails more then you would like to admit.

Bullsh*t. Not so bright are you? You are only trying to justify the failure of WP7. After more than a year, selling even less than the older version. You're just being a WP7 troll. Is Obvious. You don't need to reply cause I won't read it.