Why Did Nokia Have To Announce WP7 So Early?

Nokia's Lumia phones launched this week to a tide of muted approval. There's not much to differentiate the high-end 800 from most of the other WP7 phones on the market.

What Nokia needed on Wednesday was a bit of shock value. Shame they announced the switch from Symbian so early.

Its difficult to see how Nokia could have done things differently without upsetting Symbian developers but I get the feeling that in a similar position Apple would have found a way.