Too early for April Fool's Day jokes like that.

Microsoft openness? Wow. I can't even fix my mouth to say that.

I think this is the reason why Nokia stock tanked: The deal with MS does nothing for short term profitability, on contrary, they will have a hard time to unload phones running their Symbian OS as Symbian is now officially a dead platform. I was thinking about purchasing the N8 or E7 for a family member, but not anymore.

Additionally, short term Nokia will incur substantial costs for shedding thousands of employees and writing down intangible assets.

And their long term earnings potential is diminished too, as without a credible platform of their own a (major ?) share of their revenue will go to MS.

So, short term bad, long term bad. At least that is how I see it.

There is one other thing I became aware of just now:

As we know Nokia (U.S.) shares tanked 14% on Friday alone. And what is even more concerning is that the volume was ten-fold the average volume of shares traded. Looks like big (institutional?) investors dumped the stock after they learned about the new strategic direction. Apparently high paid professionals working for big funds do not like what they heard.

Even today, a few days after the announcement, I cannot see why this strategy is beneficial for Nokia.

It's not beneficial. This is a hostile takeover of Nokia by Microsoft, plain and simple.

One can only guess what sort of behind-the-scenes incentives were offered to the Nokia board by Microsoft.

looking at the stock right now, and it is far from end of day business.
It has dropped further 3%+ since Friday.

isn't that the point? Haven't seen much nokias innovation until N8 also....

We're living interesting times. I'm using Windows phone 7 as my daily phone nowadays, and I think it's very underestimated as a user experience. It does my basic needs very nicely, and will become better after couple of essential updates. This HTC HD2 is the ultimate test hardware for WinPhone if you're intrested, but don't want to buy a new and expensive phone.

What I don't like is idea of flushing every other possibilities that Nokia might have, if Windows Phone just doesn't sell under Nokia or any other label. I just hope they got balls to kickban Elop if the **** won't fly.

Android would have been better source for some extra time, after all they must have had some thought and maybe prototypes to run Google OS too. Intel could have been a valuable ally on this road too. It just seems that Nokia/Elop doesn't want time, just this minor change to roadmap. Hope that Nokia & M$ -deal contains a note that "We will not buy out Nokia, after we have destroyed stock price".

Yep. It's not about superior products, or what's good for Nokia. It's about killing an open OS and Qt, and acquiring a brand to promote an inferior product.

This has been planned for a long time imo.

Read more on this topic on gsm arena here: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_doesnt...-news-2322.php

Unfortunately, the things missing currently only prove the immaturity of WP7, at least if this list is correct:

"Windows Phone 7 lacks some features that were found in earlier versions of Windows Mobile. Among the features that have been confirmed to arrive in the near-future include cut, copy, and paste,[65] full multitasking for 3rd party apps,[66] and Adobe Flash.[67] Windows Phone 7 supports upgradable storage via an SD Card; however SD card memory is merged with the phone's internal storage, and changing the SD card causes the phone to reset to factory settings.[68][69] Windows Phone 7 does not support connecting to Wi-Fi (wireless) access points which are hidden[70] or have a static IP address,[71] tethering to a computer[72] (although it can be done via a hack on the Samsung Focus[73]), videocalling,[74] VoIP calling,[75] USB mass-storage,[76] universal email inbox,[76] universal search,[76] a system-wide file manager,[74] Bluetooth file transfers,[74] USSD messages,[77] or custom ringtones.[78]"

(sorry about the footnote references, too lazy to delete so many...)

This makes WP/ very much inferior to Maemo/MeeGo IMHO and shows that it is but a smartphone OS, and not "Mobile Computing and Communications" as we know and like it here