Yes, this is a point often overlooked when people say that Nokia going with Windows Phone was a huge mistake. The Android market really isn't that great a place to be in, and there's no guarantee that Nokia would have made an impact there.

I'm not saying that WP was definitely the right choice, but it's not a simple calculation, especially when you factor in the money MS is giving Nokia.

Android wasn't the only choice, though. I still wonder how would they have fared with Meego, especially if they had finished the Android compatibility layer (to ease porting).

If they could have curated the best of the Android experience, they could have come up with a compelling, differentiated product.

A good example is Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets. Amazon has a curated Android experience (and even avoids using the term "Android"). Of course, Amazon has lots of media content to pair with their Kindle Fire ecosystem that Nokia would not have.

I think Nokia could have built a good-enough content ecosystem. Nokia had a decent music service in many countries. I've even bought from them (for a song that wasn't available in the US stores I normally use). Finding a partner for books wouldn't have been hard. Kobo would probably have jumped at it, among others. Video would have been hardest, but Google was also struggling with video back then so it wouldn't have been a relative disadvantage.

I think it would've been. At the time Samsung wasn't that popular. They were still "Nokia" the largest smartphone maker. Switching to Android would've meant Nokia would've gotten to keep its position, and be #1 now instead of Samsung. Instead they went with an OS that still has only 2% market share after more than 2 years, and Nokia is like the 10th largest smartphone maker or something now.

Every time people imply that Nokia's choice was binary, I want to scream. It wasn't. Nokia was a big company with a solid cash stockpile. They had the resources to try more than one thing. That they didn't is the real management failure.

That's a good point about Nokia's choices not being binary, though part of their earlier problems were related to Nokia exploring too many options: Symbian, S40, Maemo, and Meego.