Why is anyone surprised by Nokia's poor 2nd quarter performance?

I don't understand all of the articles and Tweets expressing surprise that Nokia's 2nd quarter 2011 financial report is bad. Of course their results are poor, they are completely changing the operating system strategy on their smartphone platform so they will have poor results for the next couple of quarters as well. It would be major news if they actually showed positive results. There have been a couple new devices released, running Symbian, and they still sold 88.5 million mobile devices in the 2nd quarter.

Nokia gets slammed quite a bit for their current Symbian smartphones, but I personally keep going back to using the Nokia N8, Nokia E6, and Nokia E7 when I need a smartphone that gets excellent RF reception, great battery life, solid camera functionality, and reliable performance. Symbian may not be the flashiest OS around, but it still works very well and is highly customizable so people shouldn't totally forget it.

As readers here know I am a huge fan of Windows Phone 7 and think it is one of the best mobile operating systems around. Sales of current devices have not been great, but I think a lot of that has to do with lack of carrier promotion in stores, lack of advertising by Microsoft, and a minimal amount of exciting hardware. I'm not convinced that Windows Phone 7 will resurrect Nokia, but I do think their devices will likely be the best Windows Phone devices available starting in late 2011. The fact that the Nokia name is on a WP device should also help get Windows Phone into more hands and when more people try it the more likely it is that they will share their positive experiences.