What are they thinking

I realise I'm not privy to all the financial shenanigans that accompany these kind of announcements. However as an outside observer this move looks insane. Didn't someone suggest to Nokia how some of Microsoft's other "partners" fared?

Nokia has survived so long by producing distinctive phones which marry good hardware with good software. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes it doesn't. But it's their product from end to end and people buy a Nokia phone because of it. Now they're just another Windows Phone amongst many. Why will any consumer choose a Nokia phone over an HTC / Samsung / generic WP7 when they all run exactly the same? How can Nokia compete against Far East companies anyway?

That's not to say their current strategy was sound. Symbian is old and MeeGo was just weird. I think they both had to get the chop eventually but I think webOS or Android would have been far more suitable and viable platforms to go to while preserving the distinctive Nokia brand of yore.