Depends. Nokia was considering Android and dumped it, because it was too painful. (Nokia provides a lot of services, especially in the area of location bases services they are competing with Google, and due to their offline navigation software they might pull people away from Google Maps.) Samsung is putting more effort in their Windows Phone devices.
The problem is, branching would be pointless: Android without Android App-store is not competitive. In case of Nokia, a great system was available already and they canceled it because of the lacking ecosystem. For others it will be the same problem.
DISCLAIMER: I work for Nokia, but here I state my personal opinion only. Statements are only made based on public available information.
Ok, basically this makes Android Open Source again. But still it keeps the companies quite dependent: If the source code is published months after the devices are already on the market, any company that wants to use it under the Open Source terms rather than abiding to Googles conditions to get the source for integration timely will be one year behind.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that the source code is being made available, and its in this regard better than most competitors. But still it means that Google can control which services companies can integrate in their phones, and prevent competition with their own services like they did with Motorola/Skyhook. It's not an open development model.
I wouldn't really class Maemo/Meego as low footprint - more like a full Linux workstation in your pocket. There is a big gap in capabilities between the deeply embedded open source OS platforms like eCos and something like Linux. There are proprietary solutions which fill this gap, but Symbian was probably the most promising open source option - especially if SymbeOSE had taken off.
I agree for N9 and N900, but the N770 was still 128MB RAM, so not exactly a pocket-workstation. Its a bit difficult to get information on how much RAM is typically used in S40 smartphones, but 128MB shouldn't be too expensive, and with the growing importance of the location based services business they might even decide to reduce their margin in favour of bigger market share.
Nokia does invest time and money in open source. It was Nokia which put Qt from GPL to LGPL and still invested a lot of effort in further developing it, embracing others to use this framework.
Historically that has been true, but I'm not confident that's a reliable predictor of the future! On the upside, I've just found the Sourceforge dump of the last EPL Symbian release, so as an open source project it's not quite dead yet...
We will see. As far as I remember, they did open up the Qt development process quite a bit this year (http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/Qt_Governance_Model), and if this was in spite of increasing importance of Qt for the new strategy (which is still to be confirmed), I think it is a good sign. Much better than any sign given by Google/Android lately...
How has Nokia using its own open source software worked out in the past? You can theoretically build a superior OS using Linux that is better than Android in every way but it will fail because it lacks developer support and a large app ecosystem.
The smart phone market has changed in recent years and consumers now expect apps and lots of them.
Yes, and thats the smartphone market, where Nokia wants to use WP7 instead of MeeGo, exactly following these reasons.
Phone companies are going to have to embrace Android, take a risk with Windows Phone or become irrelevant.
Android is open source too and you don't have to follow Google's guidelines.
Did you read the Article I linked? Doesn't look like it, but its really worth the time.. I'm not disputing that it is possible to tweak Android in ways Google approves to. But Nokia is competing with Google in the area of navigation and location based services, while Nokia was working together with Microsoft for some time already (Bing Maps use Navteq data long before Elop joined Nokia, Navteq is owned my Nokia), and with competing services the openness of Android ends because Google finds ways to build up pressure. Read the article I linked for examples, it really is revealing.
Amazon has forked Android for its new Kindle, while still being able to take advantage of Android's app library.
The only thing keeping Nokia from getting into Android is with its deal with Microsoft.
This is the only reason always repeated. I just gave you another one
Microsoft has strict requirements for its phones which will lock out Nokia from the low end market. Nokia is probably thinking of a way to fill this niche on its own and not alienate open source community. They are really stuck between a rock and a hard place and whatever solution they choose is destined to fail against the Android phones.
We shall see. Android is not yes in the price segment of mid range S40, and it will still take a little time. And in developing countries having an OS which is designed to be always online might not be the most competitive.
Thanks for pointing that out - my post was a bit ambiguous. I meant to say 'Migrating to Symbian is still a much better option', which is what a lot of people pre-Elop assumed was the obvious upgrade path.
I am an Accredited Symbian Developer and did Symbian application development for some time (not too much admittedly). Concept-wise Symbian is a great system, but frankly, the SDK is a pain in the ass. Even when using the Qt SDK it makes a big difference if you develop for S60 devices or for other platforms due to stack space restrictions and other problems. The compiler is only available for Windows, of course. (Although the newer SDK integrates an interface for a remote compiler, so Linux can be used as development environment.) I don't know what it will be, but I would be happy if the rumors are true.
So either way, using Linux or Symbian, the OS needs to be adapted to the S40 hardware. Also, e.g. with RT-Linux it should be also possible to run the protocol stack on the same CPU.
I think we can safely say that any new hardware will be adapted to the OS, rather than the other way round. I'm also coming round to the idea of Nokia spending a whole bunch of cash on building a commercial quality, low footprint Linux distribution with proper real time support.
I guess they did this already for a low footprint kernel (N900, N850, N770,...), also the N900 Linux kernel might not have been real time. According to Wikipedia, the N900 has a separate CPU for telephony/audio.
I could use one of those myself - and thanks to the GPL, the source code will have to remain open this time.
Nokia does invest time and money in open source. It was Nokia which put Qt from GPL to LGPL and still invested a lot of effort in further developing it, embracing others to use this framework.
I posted it already a couple of times in different threads, becuase I think it is a really good example for your misconception of a free usable Android:
Nokia owns a map data provider (Navteq), its own location based service business etc. Nokia could either forget about these assets and work together with Google, hoping to be among those partners once in a while that get the source code early, or pick the latest open source version of Android, implement all the closed source apps (email app etc iirc) for Android, forget about the Android App Store and always be a couple of versions behind.
We are talking about low end phones too. The phones aren't going to appeal to geeks or power users at all.
To me, the smartphones are using their appeal and I'm seriously considering to get a netbook and a feature phone (so use as modem besides). The reason is that all smartphones try to get me to put my social network information (phone book) and a lot of my personal data on some manufacturers server or in a cloud or whatever.
Maybe their offline navigation, a better update policy, better security, better performance on same hardware due to native apps... Pick one or more.
The point is that Android is no option for Nokia. Google does not allow services being preinstalled on Android devices, which might compete with Googles own services. See for example http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/ With Nokia being owner of Navteq (map data), they would probably not be able to install this map data on an Android device.
So the question is not "Android or Something else", but "What else". It might be some reworked S40/Nokia OS, some adjusted Symbian, or the rumours are true and it is something Linux based.
If Nokia wants to win Android, it needs to push 50 euros Symbian Belle phones out with 480x800 resolution OLED screens and LED flash with 8Mpiz Carl Zeiss camera.
Why would it need to be Symbian? And why would it have to be cheaper than the ZTE Blade? I think it would be completely sufficient if they could offer a well programmable device for the same price with full HTML5 support and some advantage, like e.g. an LED for the camera. Btw: How do you estimate the chances that ZTE will provide updates for new Android versions within a reasonable time frame? Or do you think the *average* user will happily root his device to be able to install some updated version?
Yeah, makes sense: MS needs a strong partner to establish WP7 in the market. MS has tons of money to invest e.g. to buy Skype, to pay Nokia and so no. Of course it is their first priority to destroy/weaken Nokia, to make sure they do not accidentally end up with the strong partner they so desperately need.
WARNING: This comment might contain traces of peanut-butter. And irony.
S40 is not symbian based (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Series_40#Operating_system ). So either way, using Linux or Symbian, the OS needs to be adapted to the S40 hardware. Also, e.g. with RT-Linux it should be also possible to run the protocol stack on the same CPU.
Don't! Tinfoil hats are the product of a large multi-government conspiracy theory. While they are supposed to protect you from intrusive satellite rays, they in fact provide a nearly perfect parabolic antenna directed towards the communication- and electricity wires located in the pedestrian lanes! It's common knowledge that current brain-readers and brainwave-manipulation techniques require a proximity of 3 meters or less. At least do yourself a favor and use aluminum shoe soles as well, and maybe change the shape of your hat to a pointy had (like a wizard).
But seriously: When Stephen Elop came to Nokia, Symbian was already losing market share. Meego was basically a good concept, but 1. not ready and 2. didn't have the ecosystem people expect when bying a smartphone (like a good appstore, an accepted, not only phone-related social networking platform, and so on) Android looked nice, but if you read e.g. http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/ you can conclude that opting for Android would have meant to abandon the whole location based services, navigation software and ultimately Navteq. With the MS deal, they gain reach for location based services instead of losing it. So, also I would have loved to see MeeGo as the new flagship, I think he actually had a point chosing WP7. Also I would not want to have a WP7 device (or an Android or iPhone) due to privacy concerns, I think it is mass market compatible within the next 6 months. And I will be happy to turn my back on the smartphone hype and buy a cheap feature phone with limited App Store and loads of open source Qt applications instead and to carry my netbook around for the cases the feature phone is not sufficient:-)
IIRC there was a public statement to this: He was not allowed for some legal reasons to sale his MS stocks right after leaving MS. And he invested in Nokia stocks nearly immediately. So now, holding Nokia stocks and having sold MS stocks, your theory does not make much sense anymore.
If you read e.g. http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/ you can conclude that opting for Android would have meant they probably won't be allowed to preinstall their own maps application and location based services. Location based services is a business unit of Nokia which highly depends on reach / number of units where it is installed. For devices with price tags below 100$, the market is *huge*. Do you really think it would be clever for Nokia to donate this whole market to Google? Jumping to Android would have made sense for a pure hardware manufacturer, but not for a company owning Navteq and betting on location based services themselves.
Just three points: 1. According to an earlier leaked internal document (April 2011), it was said that an internal Meltemi project might serve as a lifeboat for the displaced MeeGo developers. 2. Nokia was doing quite a lot to keep the Qt development community at bay as well. (Ok, this would fit with the S40/Qt theory) 3. There are no, none at all, native apps available to install on S40 phones. Why is this? Could it be that the Nokia OS used on those phones does by design not allow for installation of any native apps? (If it was just a decision, I would expect at least Nokia native apps to be available to these phones.)
And last but not least: They abandon Symbian because they don't want to maintain a whole OS all by themselves. Wouldn't it make sense to abandon Nokia OS and replace it with Linux in this case?
You are of course free to believe whatever you want, but what if you would for once try to consider the possibility that Elop was *not* an MS trojan. Symbian was no viable option for the long future. Android neither. If you read e.g. http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/ you can conclude that opting for Android would have meant to abandon the whole location based services, navigation software and ultimately Navteq. Meego was a good idea, but for the mass market it would have needed a better ecosystem (developers, better online profile management, community features, etc.)
Personally I think the patent system needs to be overhauled, SW patents should be invalidated. There are several enthusiasts trying to fight for this in Europe, but guess what: Neither Samsung, nor HTC, Google or whatever company supports them! They all want SW patents to stay valid the way they are. Therefore it is extremely simpleminded to call it extortion when they are paying due to the laws they appreciate that much themselves.
afaig the other manufacturers don't pay for Linux, not even for plain Android, but for some add-ons like Active Sync, vfat32 for smartcards and maybe mass storage mode and whatnot. I guess that Nokia pays already for such licenses, or maybe has a cross-license agreement with MS. I would not expect that this was part of any MS/Nokia deal.
Actually I think that there will be a good market for WP7 devices. What most people expect from a smartphone is different from what I would expect. Most people seem to expect lots of blinking, shiny, irrelevant apps, integration of their social network and email, more like a communication central. And this is something WP7 could do at least as good as Apple or Google, since they currently still have the largest desktop installation base. (Ok, Google might be considered equally strong / stronger if they get users to not only use google web search, but to actually log into google services as soon as they open the browser.) WP8 looks like it is well fitted for tablets [ I took a look at the free developer preview; runs in Virtualbox on a real OS ], and MS is a shareholder of Facebook as well. It would have been extremely difficult to establish a competitive infrastructure for MeeGo, or would be for any other new Qt/Linux system.
Personally I don't like this tendency, and for the same reasons [privacy concerns] I didn't want to have an Android or an iPhone I wouldn't want to have a WP7 phone as well. For me a decent hardware with Linux/Qt would be just what I want: Programmable, transparent, flexible and probably more efficient than Android on comparable HW (since no additional Dalvik VM layer is required). Basically a universal computer with GSM/UMTS in handy format. This is what I would consider a smartphone, but this is a minorities point of view.
The Nokia Linux phones I saw so far (N900, N9 and N950) where quite accessible. You can either boot in secure mode or switch to development mode; the user is free to decide, he doesn't even need to hack the device or anything - just use the well documented setting. In secure mode each app has its own secure data area, cryptographically protected; something I wouldn't want to miss for some sensitive information. In development mode you can access anything you like - even the encrypted secure storage of the apps.
Only you wont be able to decrypt them, of course. And I wouldn't want to suggest e.g. my dad to buy phone for online banking or any other sensitive operations without such a good security concept in place.
The other drawback is that operators might sell customized phones with development mode disabled. But this is hardly Nokias fault if you agree on such terms in return for the operator to subsidize your device.
But as far as I know the statistics show that the reproduction nowadays rate of humans is rather reciprocal than proportional to success (assumed that you take success in jobs, political success etc. as the metric for success). This might give evolution a hard time to help us here:-)
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Depends. Nokia was considering Android and dumped it, because it was too painful. (Nokia provides a lot of services, especially in the area of location bases services they are competing with Google, and due to their offline navigation software they might pull people away from Google Maps.) Samsung is putting more effort in their Windows Phone devices.
The problem is, branching would be pointless: Android without Android App-store is not competitive. In case of Nokia, a great system was available already and they canceled it because of the lacking ecosystem. For others it will be the same problem.
DISCLAIMER: I work for Nokia, but here I state my personal opinion only. Statements are only made based on public available information.
Ok, basically this makes Android Open Source again. But still it keeps the companies quite dependent: If the source code is published months after the devices are already on the market, any company that wants to use it under the Open Source terms rather than abiding to Googles conditions to get the source for integration timely will be one year behind.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that the source code is being made available, and its in this regard better than most competitors. But still it means that Google can control which services companies can integrate in their phones, and prevent competition with their own services like they did with Motorola/Skyhook. It's not an open development model.
Some educational information on how to find mangos:
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/mango/
(Careful: It's quite hard to get it out of your head afterwards, and sometimes I even find myself clicking the link again *shiver*)
Correction: The N770 had only 64MB RAM, the flash was 128MB (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N770#Nokia_770)
I wouldn't really class Maemo/Meego as low footprint - more like a full Linux workstation in your pocket. There is a big gap in capabilities between the deeply embedded open source OS platforms like eCos and something like Linux. There are proprietary solutions which fill this gap, but Symbian was probably the most promising open source option - especially if SymbeOSE had taken off.
I agree for N9 and N900, but the N770 was still 128MB RAM, so not exactly a pocket-workstation. Its a bit difficult to get information on how much RAM is typically used in S40 smartphones, but 128MB shouldn't be too expensive, and with the growing importance of the location based services business they might even decide to reduce their margin in favour of bigger market share.
Nokia does invest time and money in open source. It was Nokia which put Qt from GPL to LGPL and still invested a lot of effort in further developing it, embracing others to use this framework.
Historically that has been true, but I'm not confident that's a reliable predictor of the future! On the upside, I've just found the Sourceforge dump of the last EPL Symbian release, so as an open source project it's not quite dead yet...
We will see. As far as I remember, they did open up the Qt development process quite a bit this year (http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/Qt_Governance_Model), and if this was in spite of increasing importance of Qt for the new strategy (which is still to be confirmed), I think it is a good sign. Much better than any sign given by Google/Android lately...
How has Nokia using its own open source software worked out in the past? You can theoretically build a superior OS using Linux that is better than Android in every way but it will fail because it lacks developer support and a large app ecosystem.
The smart phone market has changed in recent years and consumers now expect apps and lots of them.
Yes, and thats the smartphone market, where Nokia wants to use WP7 instead of MeeGo, exactly following these reasons.
Phone companies are going to have to embrace Android, take a risk with Windows Phone or become irrelevant.
Android is open source too and you don't have to follow Google's guidelines.
Did you read the Article I linked? Doesn't look like it, but its really worth the time.. I'm not disputing that it is possible to tweak Android in ways Google approves to. But Nokia is competing with Google in the area of navigation and location based services, while Nokia was working together with Microsoft for some time already (Bing Maps use Navteq data long before Elop joined Nokia, Navteq is owned my Nokia), and with competing services the openness of Android ends because Google finds ways to build up pressure. Read the article I linked for examples, it really is revealing.
Amazon has forked Android for its new Kindle, while still being able to take advantage of Android's app library.
The only thing keeping Nokia from getting into Android is with its deal with Microsoft.
This is the only reason always repeated. I just gave you another one
Microsoft has strict requirements for its phones which will lock out Nokia from the low end market. Nokia is probably thinking of a way to fill this niche on its own and not alienate open source community. They are really stuck between a rock and a hard place and whatever solution they choose is destined to fail against the Android phones.
We shall see. Android is not yes in the price segment of mid range S40, and it will still take a little time. And in developing countries having an OS which is designed to be always online might not be the most competitive.
S40 is not symbian based (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Series_40#Operating_system ).
Thanks for pointing that out - my post was a bit ambiguous. I meant to say 'Migrating to Symbian is still a much better option', which is what a lot of people pre-Elop assumed was the obvious upgrade path.
I am an Accredited Symbian Developer and did Symbian application development for some time (not too much admittedly). Concept-wise Symbian is a great system, but frankly, the SDK is a pain in the ass. Even when using the Qt SDK it makes a big difference if you develop for S60 devices or for other platforms due to stack space restrictions and other problems. The compiler is only available for Windows, of course. (Although the newer SDK integrates an interface for a remote compiler, so Linux can be used as development environment.)
I don't know what it will be, but I would be happy if the rumors are true.
So either way, using Linux or Symbian, the OS needs to be adapted to the S40 hardware. Also, e.g. with RT-Linux it should be also possible to run the protocol stack on the same CPU.
I think we can safely say that any new hardware will be adapted to the OS, rather than the other way round. I'm also coming round to the idea of Nokia spending a whole bunch of cash on building a commercial quality, low footprint Linux distribution with proper real time support.
I guess they did this already for a low footprint kernel (N900, N850, N770,...), also the N900 Linux kernel might not have been real time. According to Wikipedia, the N900 has a separate CPU for telephony/audio.
I could use one of those myself - and thanks to the GPL, the source code will have to remain open this time.
Nokia does invest time and money in open source. It was Nokia which put Qt from GPL to LGPL and still invested a lot of effort in further developing it, embracing others to use this framework.
I posted it already a couple of times in different threads, becuase I think it is a really good example for your misconception of a free usable Android:
thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/
Nokia owns a map data provider (Navteq), its own location based service business etc. Nokia could either forget about these assets and work together with Google, hoping to be among those partners once in a while that get the source code early, or pick the latest open source version of Android, implement all the closed source apps (email app etc iirc) for Android, forget about the Android App Store and always be a couple of versions behind.
There is "poison pill" in Nokia shares. If you buy over 30% of Nokia shares, you need to buy whole Nokia.
Can you substantiate this claim? (Link or other source for this information?) Never heard this before, but sounds interesting.
We are talking about low end phones too. The phones aren't going to appeal to geeks or power users at all.
To me, the smartphones are using their appeal and I'm seriously considering to get a netbook and a feature phone (so use as modem besides). The reason is that all smartphones try to get me to put my social network information (phone book) and a lot of my personal data on some manufacturers server or in a cloud or whatever.
Maybe their offline navigation, a better update policy, better security, better performance on same hardware due to native apps... Pick one or more.
The point is that Android is no option for Nokia. Google does not allow services being preinstalled on Android devices, which might compete with Googles own services. See for example http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/
With Nokia being owner of Navteq (map data), they would probably not be able to install this map data on an Android device.
So the question is not "Android or Something else", but "What else". It might be some reworked S40/Nokia OS, some adjusted Symbian, or the rumours are true and it is something Linux based.
If Nokia wants to win Android, it needs to push 50 euros Symbian Belle phones out with 480x800 resolution OLED screens and LED flash with 8Mpiz Carl Zeiss camera.
Why would it need to be Symbian? And why would it have to be cheaper than the ZTE Blade? I think it would be completely sufficient if they could offer a well programmable device for the same price with full HTML5 support and some advantage, like e.g. an LED for the camera.
Btw: How do you estimate the chances that ZTE will provide updates for new Android versions within a reasonable time frame? Or do you think the *average* user will happily root his device to be able to install some updated version?
Yeah, makes sense: MS needs a strong partner to establish WP7 in the market. MS has tons of money to invest e.g. to buy Skype, to pay Nokia and so no. Of course it is their first priority to destroy/weaken Nokia, to make sure they do not accidentally end up with the strong partner they so desperately need.
WARNING: This comment might contain traces of peanut-butter. And irony.
S40 is not symbian based (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Series_40#Operating_system ). So either way, using Linux or Symbian, the OS needs to be adapted to the S40 hardware. Also, e.g. with RT-Linux it should be also possible to run the protocol stack on the same CPU.
S40 is not Symbian. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Series_40#Operating_system for information.
Don't! Tinfoil hats are the product of a large multi-government conspiracy theory. While they are supposed to protect you from intrusive satellite rays, they in fact provide a nearly perfect parabolic antenna directed towards the communication- and electricity wires located in the pedestrian lanes! It's common knowledge that current brain-readers and brainwave-manipulation techniques require a proximity of 3 meters or less. At least do yourself a favor and use aluminum shoe soles as well, and maybe change the shape of your hat to a pointy had (like a wizard).
But seriously: When Stephen Elop came to Nokia, Symbian was already losing market share. Meego was basically a good concept, but 1. not ready and 2. didn't have the ecosystem people expect when bying a smartphone (like a good appstore, an accepted, not only phone-related social networking platform, and so on) :-)
Android looked nice, but if you read e.g. http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/ you can conclude that opting for Android would have meant to abandon the whole location based services, navigation software and ultimately Navteq. With the MS deal, they gain reach for location based services instead of losing it.
So, also I would have loved to see MeeGo as the new flagship, I think he actually had a point chosing WP7. Also I would not want to have a WP7 device (or an Android or iPhone) due to privacy concerns, I think it is mass market compatible within the next 6 months. And I will be happy to turn my back on the smartphone hype and buy a cheap feature phone with limited App Store and loads of open source Qt applications instead and to carry my netbook around for the cases the feature phone is not sufficient
IIRC there was a public statement to this: He was not allowed for some legal reasons to sale his MS stocks right after leaving MS. And he invested in Nokia stocks nearly immediately. So now, holding Nokia stocks and having sold MS stocks, your theory does not make much sense anymore.
If you read e.g. http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/ you can conclude that opting for Android would have meant they probably won't be allowed to preinstall their own maps application and location based services. Location based services is a business unit of Nokia which highly depends on reach / number of units where it is installed. For devices with price tags below 100$, the market is *huge*. Do you really think it would be clever for Nokia to donate this whole market to Google? Jumping to Android would have made sense for a pure hardware manufacturer, but not for a company owning Navteq and betting on location based services themselves.
Just three points:
1. According to an earlier leaked internal document (April 2011), it was said that an internal Meltemi project might serve as a lifeboat for the displaced MeeGo developers.
2. Nokia was doing quite a lot to keep the Qt development community at bay as well. (Ok, this would fit with the S40/Qt theory)
3. There are no, none at all, native apps available to install on S40 phones. Why is this? Could it be that the Nokia OS used on those phones does by design not allow for installation of any native apps? (If it was just a decision, I would expect at least Nokia native apps to be available to these phones.)
And last but not least: They abandon Symbian because they don't want to maintain a whole OS all by themselves. Wouldn't it make sense to abandon Nokia OS and replace it with Linux in this case?
You are of course free to believe whatever you want, but what if you would for once try to consider the possibility that Elop was *not* an MS trojan. Symbian was no viable option for the long future. Android neither. If you read e.g. http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/ you can conclude that opting for Android would have meant to abandon the whole location based services, navigation software and ultimately Navteq. Meego was a good idea, but for the mass market it would have needed a better ecosystem (developers, better online profile management, community features, etc.)
Personally I think the patent system needs to be overhauled, SW patents should be invalidated. There are several enthusiasts trying to fight for this in Europe, but guess what: Neither Samsung, nor HTC, Google or whatever company supports them! They all want SW patents to stay valid the way they are. Therefore it is extremely simpleminded to call it extortion when they are paying due to the laws they appreciate that much themselves.
afaig the other manufacturers don't pay for Linux, not even for plain Android, but for some add-ons like Active Sync, vfat32 for smartcards and maybe mass storage mode and whatnot. I guess that Nokia pays already for such licenses, or maybe has a cross-license agreement with MS. I would not expect that this was part of any MS/Nokia deal.
Actually I think that there will be a good market for WP7 devices. What most people expect from a smartphone is different from what I would expect. Most people seem to expect lots of blinking, shiny, irrelevant apps, integration of their social network and email, more like a communication central. And this is something WP7 could do at least as good as Apple or Google, since they currently still have the largest desktop installation base. (Ok, Google might be considered equally strong / stronger if they get users to not only use google web search, but to actually log into google services as soon as they open the browser.)
WP8 looks like it is well fitted for tablets [ I took a look at the free developer preview; runs in Virtualbox on a real OS ], and MS is a shareholder of Facebook as well. It would have been extremely difficult to establish a competitive infrastructure for MeeGo, or would be for any other new Qt/Linux system.
Personally I don't like this tendency, and for the same reasons [privacy concerns] I didn't want to have an Android or an iPhone I wouldn't want to have a WP7 phone as well. For me a decent hardware with Linux/Qt would be just what I want: Programmable, transparent, flexible and probably more efficient than Android on comparable HW (since no additional Dalvik VM layer is required). Basically a universal computer with GSM/UMTS in handy format. This is what I would consider a smartphone, but this is a minorities point of view.
The Nokia Linux phones I saw so far (N900, N9 and N950) where quite accessible. You can either boot in secure mode or switch to development mode; the user is free to decide, he doesn't even need to hack the device or anything - just use the well documented setting. In secure mode each app has its own secure data area, cryptographically protected; something I wouldn't want to miss for some sensitive information. In development mode you can access anything you like - even the encrypted secure storage of the apps.
Only you wont be able to decrypt them, of course. And I wouldn't want to suggest e.g. my dad to buy phone for online banking or any other sensitive operations without such a good security concept in place.
The other drawback is that operators might sell customized phones with development mode disabled. But this is hardly Nokias fault if you agree on such terms in return for the operator to subsidize your device.
But as far as I know the statistics show that the reproduction nowadays rate of humans is rather reciprocal than proportional to success (assumed that you take success in jobs, political success etc. as the metric for success). This might give evolution a hard time to help us here :-)