If I were CEO of Nokia, here's what I'd do. I'd go to Apple and license iOS. Now is the perfect time, and Nokia missed a critical opportunity by not doing so.

I know, "apple doesn't license their OS dummy!". But think about this:

1. Android is selling more phones right now.

2. Apple is unable to manufacture enough phones, and has admitted in conference calls that they have lost sales for this reason.

3. Nokia going to MSFT (with an ex-MFST exec as their CEO) is an obvious move... Apple was surely aware of this alternative, and killing Phone 7 in the crib is in Apple's interest. So, "keep your enemy closer", in a sense.

4. The terms would be sufficient for Apple. (EG: Apple wants platform dominance, and profit on its hardware, not exclusivity.)

5. Nokia probably could have gotten an exclusive for 4-5 years, so that the only suppliers of iPhones would be Apple and Nokia for that period. This benefits both- less distraction for Apple, and Nokia doesn't have to worry about being commoditized like they do with MSFT, which would never grant such an exclusivity period.

Why wouldn't Apple agree to this? Here's the objections, and why I think they don't apply:

1. Apple wants control over their OS. Well, this they would get. Apple would dictate to nokia the specs of the hardware, nokia would build it. They would have to cooperate on addtional features (like a second screen that noikia might want to ad, or whatever.) Apple would still be in the drivers seat for the OS like Microsoft is here.

2. Apple wants all the money. This isn't really true. Steve Jobs offered to license Mac OS X to the One Laptop Per Child project for free. Apple would do financial terms with Nokia, probably competitive to MSFT. Apple wants the platform dominance and the consequent %30 of appstore sales more than they want to make $300 on every phone sold. (We'll see this from apple soon with a "feature iphone")

3. Apple doesn't want Nokia taking away sales of iPhones. There might be some risk of this, but nokia can't compete with iphones now hardware wise, and apple's more interested in platform dominance than squeezing every penny out of the phone market. Most nokia phones right now are sold to people who chose them over the iphone for various reasons, probably having to do with not having any taste, or more seriously, nokias distribution and manufacturing capacity.

So long as the iPhone isn't threatened, and it wouldn't be by nokia, and the OS is respected, Apple would be happy to have another major manufacturer increasing iPhone market share.

In Apple's DNA are two drives:

1. To never again be in a situation where someone can cut off their air supply like Microsoft did.

2. To always produce a high quality product.

3. There is no three.

Apple doesn't care about being the most profitable, or having absolute control Everything apple does is really related to 1 & 2. People often like to attribute other drives to Apple because it serves their interests to do so, but if you listen to what Apple's executives say and look at how the act, these are the two drives.

Apple licensing iOS to nokia under terms similar to the MSFT deal supports both of these drives and doesn't undermine either. (if Nokia started cutting off apple's air supply, Apple would simply not renew the agreement.)

I believe the reason this deal happened with Microsoft is that Elop is an ex-MSFTie. In my experience, people who spend large parts of their career at MSFT start seeing things completely in terms of MSFT's dominance, and I suspect this still happens even though MSFT is no longer dominant.

The Nokia board screwed the pooch, as they say.