I think it's one of the only things Nokia could do given all the bad moves they have made over the past decade to put themselves here.

Bridging another recent news item, Nokia should really have dumped Symbian and their other OS efforts long ago and made a strong move to acquire Palm when they had the chance. That would have been better than the announcement today.

As I mentioned in another thread a few days ago, I think the best move for Nokia and Microsoft, would have been a completely exclusive partnership for this OS. That would mean Microsoft ending their licensing of Windows Phone to other handset makers, all of whom are already more interested in Android anyway and Nokia going exclusive on every single handset other than burner (free/disposable) models which they could brand differently.

It still looks to me like Nokia and Microsoft are going to get clobbered in the smartphone game. Nokia may be right that there will be three leading platform, but I don't think Windows will be one of them.