[sirkneeland]

"Android turned making phones into a commodity. The only place where money can be made is by providing an ecosystem."

I agree with that. Having an ecosystem is the root of value in mobile device companies. Elop was correct to identify an ecosystem as the most important thing. Where it gets controversial is the subsequent MSFT decision, which could be interpreted as saying "Now that we have determined ecosystems are the most valuable thing a company can have, we are torching ours and outsourcing that part of the company to Microsoft"

The more logical thing would have been "now that we have determined ecosystems are the most valuable thing a company can have, we are all-in with Qt and MeeGo."

Of course, it ultimately boils down to whether Elop and Nokia's leadership had more faith in Microsoft than in themselves to build that ecosystem. In terms of execution, neither company had been firing on all cylinders for quite some time...