The Palm Pre and why Nokia is doomed in the smartphone wars

A sweet tender kiss of an article from Forbes on ex-Palm designer, Peter Skillman. He's now heading up "user experience" for Nokia's MeeGo line.

What is Nokia's MeeGo line, you ask?

That's a new line of smartphones, not available, no one knows when they will be, if ever, based on Symbian. No, no really. Based on a sort of Linux OS that is absolutely not Symbian. Nor iOS. Nor Android. It's the future of Nokia. Except for when they don't talk about it, in which case Maemo, er, Symbian 3 (or 4) is the future.

Kind of.

And that's why Nokia is doomed.

No, not really. It's because Nokia hired a guy to head up "user experience" who was at Palm and who was instrumental in the design of the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. Now, I'll be the first to admit that the Palm Pre and Pixi bombed for several reasons. And design was most definitely one of them. Despite Mr. Skillman's insistence that marketing and webOS and other (non-design) features doomed the device. And he's going to make the MeeGo relevant?

But, no, that really isn't why Nokia is doomed. It's because if the man who helped launch the Palm smartphones, who spent years at design firm IDEO, had the skills and the experience and the wherewithal and the savvy and the connections to actually make MeeGo a device people want, then when he left Palm (after it was acquired by HP), Nokia would have snatched him up.

Only they didn't. As Mr Skillman notes, Nokia spent "9 days" interviewing him. Because, I imagine, they are incapable of actually making a decision. And in the smartphone wars, that means doom.