[sirkneeland]

3 possibilities (and probably many more):

1) go all-in with their own Symbian/Qt/MeeGo strategy

2) go all-in with Google Android

3) go all-in with a Nokia fork of Google Android (a nonstarter today, but back in 2011, with Nokia's considerable heft and before Google started rolling so much of Android into non-open Google Play Services, things could have played out differently)

In terms of Nokia's performance as a phone company, it is more or less impossible for any of these options to have done any worse than Nokia did with Windows Phone.

HOWEVER, for Nokia as a company, Windows Phone "worked out" in the sense that they had a willing buyer for an asset that was long-term uncompetitive against Asian players in a commodity market. (then again that too has a counter-argument that the phone division would have been worth more than $7 billion had it not dedicated itself to the losing proposition of Windows Phone)