OK haven't got a N900 yet but hopefully will receive in next couple of days from Vodaphone, i suspect it will be delayed. anyway onto the the post, in mainly a MS man professionally, but OSX at work as well and possibly 10% of my time is some Linux derivative.

Personally i have always thought the Ipoop (tm) is well fine for most people , but well it;'s a toy , in polite terms. So while Google have intrigued me with device like the nexus,the restrictions with android and the reliance on a company like google have made me hesitant to become a google disciple.

My current phone an N95 while not sexy , not touch-phone, , is a great piece of kit.
So reading various post's here and elsewhere i decided to change provider and go with the N900, knowing it's like the embarrassing uncle dancing at your wedding, (usb port, calender, just purely mental) but still it's your lovable uncle (BTW that's me , the slightly deranged lovable uncle), i.e it has it fault's but hopefully that makes it interesting.

The point being what is Maemo to Nokia, there something about Maemo that has me enthusiastic about I.T again and things like that again, to be honest not sure why. I think in recent years with DRM, Locked Devices, something like Maemo brings back the 80's to me, where computers where fun, yes it might not be polished but if i want an app that can derive my weight and chance of getting a date from my beer intake, it doesn't matter if it's in Ovi , i can develop it myself for my customer of 1, me.

So the question is why is Nokia going for Maemo, is it a punt in fear of speak and Ipoop, or has possibly Nokia maybe been the most radical and been a bit naughty one night at the pub and defined the future of mobile phones.

BTW i have had a bottle of wine and i have work in the morning, im not sure what that says about me when i drink and post on computer related posts. So excuse me French, Bonjour

Personally, I believe that Maemo is absolutely critical to Nokia's continued success as a technology leader. Whether the majority of their top executives see that, too, I doubt.

Having a nice glass of Merlot myself.

I believe Symbian is more important to Nokia. I love Maemo but the recent use of my 5800XM symbian phone convinced me what a great OS it is - solid as a rock. Its still the most fit for purpose and stable of the lot - a much needed UI revamp will cement its top dog status. That Maemo and Symbian are both excellent and yet opensource shows Nokia to be a broadminded forward thinking company very much unlike the narrow minded Apple and its snowflake of a fad that is the iPhone. viva Nokia !.

I'm convinced Nokia wants mostly out of the OS business and is setting Symbian and Maemo up to compete against each other for the future, each with largely third-party development. I also think Maemo, being the more computer-based OS, has the ultimate advantage.

At the moment, Maemo is a mindshare grab more than a technology-share one. Symbian is a larger and more concerted effort towards more pricing points and regions. Its also the carrier of their reputation, so its handled carefully and more broadly right now.

Maemo is what things look like when they can develop from nearly-scratch. Its potential won't be grasped for a few years and approx 1.5 revisions. A mobile OS platform, when done right, can have a nice-sized shelf life. A computing platform - a well executed one - can be the shelf.

maemo is critical for nokia. nokia needs innovation and if anything good came out of the apple phenomit, it woke up Nokia that business as usual will not cut it. i suspect that the future belongs to phone like computers with all the capabilities of a laptop

Just look at Nokia's own pie charts of its target shares of OSs in its portfolio and market segment target for each, and the answer is obvious.

Can you link to them please?

I didn't find the link but here's a post I made referring to the pie charts with approximations in terms of percentages, absolute values and number of devices. Make no mistake Nokia is dependent on Maemo, and the financial community agrees.

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=16

have a look here also

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...830#post499830

Edit: There's a link to one of the images in this thread
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=38901&page=2

PS. BTW, how do I tag a thread post creation? DS

From a blog post at symbian community - yet an original @ reuters wasn't just there.