I'm pretty sure their walkout is over Nokia moving away from in-house software and making a company wide change in direction which endangers their careers.

It wouldn't matter if it was Android, webOS, or iOS.

So nobody sees the appointment to CEO in Sept 2010 and the adoption of Win7 as a plan. This was in the works for a while. Just out in the open today.

Some are speculating it's a precursor to a buyout of Nokia by Microsoft.

Nokia To Get 'Huge' Payments From Microsoft To Use Windows Phone 7 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/13/nokia-microsoft-news_n_822574.html)

Windows Phone 7 is so good they have to pay Nokia to use it.

Perhaps they didn't want them to partner up with Google?

It seems to be a win-win (unless you work in R&D for Nokia).

The reality is that Nokia is bleeding badly. The Smartphone market has taken off and they are down and out.

It was Android or WP. Nokia considered Android and rejected it as being me too.

Not sure Nokia had much of a choice.

I think the big mistake is abandoning the development of MeeGo. As I said before, WP7 offers much more opportunity to differentiate themselves in the market vs Android. That said, tying themselves to one horse which they don't control seems risky.

The companies that manage any degree of success using one smartphone OS seem to be the ones who own and develop it themselves, notably Apple, RIM and to a much lesser extent Palm/HP. The successful companies who are almost exclusively manufacturers tend to diversify among various smartphone OS, notably LG, Samsung, and HTC, while still attempting their own OS (Brew, Bada). Very few (Motorola) find much success without variety.

While I think WP7 is a good move for Nokia, I also think they need to have other options in place, be it MeeGo, Android, or something else entirely. If WP7 doesn't sell for them and/or Microsoft slows development then they may find themselves in an even bigger hole.

So nobody sees the appointment to CEO in Sept 2010 and the adoption of Win7 as a plan. This was in the works for a while. Just out in the open today.

I doubt anyone would think this move is a knee-jerk reaction. I'm certain that the board of directors at Nokia have been aware of this for a long time, and they had already decided on their course of action when they selected their new CEO. Starting in September, Nokia was just working through the formalities and negotiating with Microsoft for the best deal they could get. These deals don't get done overnight.

In other news, NOK has now vapourized 25% of their market cap since the announcement, although in fairness, this isn't the lowest they've ever been.

Could be a great buying opportunity though i might not have time to research it before buying. Markets tend to over-react.

It seems to have a good dividend (assuming it's not cut in near future).

From an investment perspective, I see no upside in Nokia. Feature phones have become a commodity item which will likely be dominated by the Chinese in the next few years. On smartphones, even if Nokia's marketshare stabilizes (which I doubt) , they don't own the OS so how big can the profits be?

See
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1543014

for Nokia's marketshares last year. Nothing

According to an unconfirmed report from TechCrunch Europe, Nokia explored a possible partnership with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion before announcing its decision to adopt Windows Phone 7. It had been widely reported that Nokia was deciding between Google’s Android platform and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS when considering its future, but RIM’s BlackBerry platform was apparently also in the running to become Nokia’s potential savior (http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/15/nokia-courted-rim-before-jumping-into-bed-with-microsoft-report-claims/)

Microsoft actually has a pretty impressive list of hardware partners as it is (Samsung, HTC, Dell, LG), though I'm sure they'd always love to add more. I think making some high-end WP7 devices would be a nice way to tide Nokia over until they can get MeeGo going.
lineups.

yes but open system like Android is much better. There will be 10x more applications soon. The popularity of the phone is based on available applications. OVI Store is dead comparing to Android Store. Microsoft marketplace will be the same if M$ will not change politics of publishing software.