Why does Microsoft doing Nokia make sense?

After the initial shock, realizing that the feature of Meego (or its predecessor Maemo) will be going downhill - at least for mobile phones, I think business-wise it's a bold but good move.

I love my N900 phone and enjoy the benefits of a truly open phone platform each day. It excels especially because of a very solid and usable hardware design.

But who else, besides Übergeeks and Supernerds, care or even knows about an open mobile phone platform? Most of the features I would call killer-features are of practically no relevance to at least 95% of the phone user space. So what is a very smart phone to me, looks around-average to most others.

So what stays is the combined marketing forces of Nokia and Microsoft. And that's where they will make an impact on the mobile phone market. Most smart phones aren't even sold yet, so the interesting market share is the one to be made.

Nokia and Microsoft are strong communicators in the average consumer perception, with strong campaigns, aligned messages and a broad perception. Especially in the non-US markets.

Now, my next phone will surely be an Android or WebOS phone, but as I already said: I'm not the average consumer. So my buying decision doesn't count.