While this is probably true, it benefits immensely from hindsight. Even when Nokia decided not to move forward with MeeGo (which was an extremely defensible de

While this is probably true, it benefits immensely from hindsight. Even when Nokia decided not to move forward with MeeGo (which was an extremely defensible decision given how behind schedule both the OS and the products to run it on had become), they considered their services--particularly mapping--a major "crown jewel." They went with Windows Phone (n.b.: not Windows Mobile, which was the earlier OS) because Microsoft would partner with them and promote the Nokia products as "premium" Windows Phone devices while letting Nokia use their own services. That deal wouldn't have been possible with Google. While Android is open source, the Android branding is not, and to be able to market their device as Android--and get any support from Google--they would have had abandon their own services and use Google's. If I'd been in charge of things, would I have done that? No. I think Nokia should have gone with AOSP and put not only their own services but their own UX on it, along with Qt. I was at Nokia at 2010 and we were in the process of unifying Symbian and Meego on Qt, with the notion that you'd (mostly) just be able to recompile a Qt-based app to move between OSes; they could have kept that strategy while moving to Android. Then they'd be able to run Android apps natively and have a solid platform to move ahead on, while not leaving Nokia's existing community feeling like they'd been shut out. And, as others have pointed out, Nokia had some fantastic industrial design; the N8/N9, whose design language carried over into the Lumia line, was really the only phone design I've liked as much as the iPhone 4/4s design. But, Nokia's choice wasn't entirely bananas at the time. We all knew Windows Phone was late to the game, but initially it still got a lot of positive attention, a lot of love for its UX design, and it was Microsoft. I was arguably a skeptic, and even I wildly underestimated how hard the platform ended up cratering.