People often blame Nokia for ditching Meego, but I wonder whether Intel is not the real culprit. I have seen some comments saying that Intel was a) quite intent on being in charge of the Meego project, B) very slow and C) too much centered on Intel CPU:s (a big problem as Intel still is practically non-existent in Mobile phones). I don’t know the truth, but at least it seems clear that Nokia’s decision to use their own Maemo instead of the “real” Meego in Nokia N9 is a testament to the fact that Meego development must have had some serious problems.

You said that HTC and Samsung are doing great. This is true especially in high end devices like Samsung Galaxy S/S2,  but their lower end products are vulnerable to increasing competition. At least the lower end Android-devices I have seen (and used) have not been very good. Even Nokia’s new improved Symbian Belle -models seem to offer at least as good, and probably better, value for money.

Bringing Swipe to lower end will make the competing lower end Androids seem simply old and outdated, in a bit similar fashion to how iPhone made most of the other smartphones look a bit dated back in 2007. Android will still have the advantage of its vast number of apps, but this is quite irrelevant to a significant proportion of people (to whom a phone is first and foremost for talking, texting/tweeting, taking pictures, using the gps/map and occasional internet browsing, and other things such as design and usability take priority as long as the afore-mentioned core-functionalities are decently covered).

You said that HTC and Samsung are doing great. This is true especially in high end devices like Samsung Galaxy S/S2,  but their lower end products are vulnerable to increasing competition. At least the lower end Android-devices I have seen (and used) have not been very good. Even Nokia’s new improved Symbian Belle -models seem to offer at least as good, and probably better, value for money.

Bringing Swipe to lower end will make the competing lower end Androids seem simply old and outdated, in a bit similar fashion to how iPhone made most of the other smartphones look a bit dated back in 2007. Android will still have the advantage of its vast number of apps, but this is quite irrelevant to a significant proportion of people (to whom a phone is first and foremost for talking, texting/tweeting, taking pictures, using the gps/map and occasional internet browsing, and other things such as design and usability take priority as long as the afore-mentioned core-functionalities are decently covered).

So why does Nokia think this retread is a good idea? Yeah, a lot of people used Symbian. Some of those people would upgrade to a new Nokia OS. But let’s be honest, they aren’t going to expand their marketshare because even cheap Nokia phones run a premium yet whatever product will use this can never be any more than a dead-end featurephone.

So again. Why does Nokia think this is a good idea? My guess is pride. And pride alone.

Here’s a clue- just push forward with Harmattan/Tizen. I’ve never seen something that has gotten so many positive reviews be killed before getting out the door.

What the heck kind of conversations are happening up in the Nokia board room?