I belong to one of the non-US markets where Nokia smartphones and dumbphones had a majority share. To be honest, abandoning Symbian was quite a shock here because, despite being slow, it was a very familiar user interface for vast majority of the population.
Rather than throw the baby with the bathwater, Nokia could retained a very loyal customer base by offering a smoother migration path. They could have even made an entirely rewritten touch based OS with a familiar Nokia UI (or as a fallback mode). It would have been a killer product in such markets. Instead Elop chose to write-off all the good work Nokia has done thus far by calling it a "burning platform".
Whichever numbers you look at today, the sheer stupidity of that decision is painfully evident.
Rather than throw the baby with the bathwater, Nokia could retained a very loyal customer base by offering a smoother migration path. They could have even made an entirely rewritten touch based OS with a familiar Nokia UI (or as a fallback mode). It would have been a killer product in such markets. Instead Elop chose to write-off all the good work Nokia has done thus far by calling it a "burning platform".
Whichever numbers you look at today, the sheer stupidity of that decision is painfully evident.