@uecker
Um. Nokia had experience doing that. That doesn't mean they were really good at it.

Apple builds new product lines once a year. Nokia didn't renew their product lines anywhere close to that.
@mjg59

@mjg59
I think it's not accurate to depict that as the only viable scenario, or even if it was indeed the only viable one to therefore say that the choices that were made by Elop weren't the final nail in the coffin for mobile Linux at the time.

Nokia had two platforms that yes were competing with each other and holding each other back, but each had devices in the market that people were actually using with some success and some development, whereas Windows

phone at the time was mostly vaporware.

He could have chosen to tighten the collaboration with Intel and kill symbian. He could have looked for an external partner/investor in symbian (less likely, I know) and kill meego.

Instead he chose to go for Windows phone, which at the time was an os but not yet a platform, and kill the two software stacks that he already had in house...

...thereby forcing people to either retrain on the new OS or quit, meaning you have to invest in acquiring the new expertise.

Yes he had to make radical choices, and yes the offer from Microsoft would have been interesting from a financial and engineering point of view. I don't think it was the only option though.
@mjg59

(also this could be an interesting scenario for a business tycoon type of game: be Elop and try not to run the company into the ground)
@mjg59