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"At this point you would have to pay me a lot of money to work on Symbian," said Chris Haseman, a senior software engineer at doubleTwist Corp., a software development firm. Mr. Haseman works with Android and is learning how to write for the iPhone. "Symbian is just not a big player out there.... I don't feel the same way about it as I do the iPhone, where I feel like I need to know how to write for it," he adds. [...]

In addition to the iPhone, Nokia faces growing competition in the U.S. from phones that operate on Google's Android software. Nokia has refused to adopt Android for its own devices, preferring to stick with Symbian, which developers have criticized as outdated and clunky. The problem, they say, is that the Symbian has been a more difficult and time consuming platform. Symbian takes 15 months or more to master versus less than six months for Android, according to strategy firm VisionMobile. Developers also say that their applications sales from Nokia's Ovi Store generate less revenue than Apple and Google's application stores.

Fully agree! Nokia’s insistence on a closed, controlled platform has stifled it’s growth. It has the huge marketshare in spite of its limitations, not because of them.

Nokia is losing share, and unless they get rolling quickly with Meego or Android (and quit their fascination with Symbian), they’re going to fall behind Android.

Knowing several Finns, my guess is that they will not make a serious push at Meego or Android, will continue to focus on Symbian (their “own” OS), and cede top-spot to Android. And probably Samsung will take over as the largest phone maker in the world, at that point (Samsung being the ultimate mercenary in the phone market - they’ll support any OS out there, if they’re allowed to).