What I believe they are meaning with this is the next generation smartphone market, not the current one. WP7 and iOS will be needing total rework to fit in, whereas Meego is fine even at the moment (..when it is stable at least!). Targeting current market for complete takeover is just stupid, unless you are happy with dying out slowly.
Getting into margins now is job of WP7 platform. Symbian is not fit into smartphone field (use S^3 if you don't believe) and these guys realise it. True that Meego will need lot of work, but there should be enough time to polish it before market they should be targing opens.
Why would iOS require total rework to fit? The most important thing iOS brought was the idea, that small touchscreen requires new UI paradigm. I don't see that changing anytime soon. As for the "under the hood" stuff, it already has a lot in common with OS X, and will share even more with the release of Lion.
Apple for one is known to be looking way ahead of "current market".
Chips that are able to put out more power than current netbooks and still fit into smarphones are not too far away, I'd expect those be ready for market in couple years. Handhelds would be phones that could also be used as laptops/dockable computers. Meego and Qt makes it almost trivial to make same apps work on touchscreen and also with traditional monitor/mouse/keyboard. Remember, the OS is not the platform anymore, it's the app ecosystem.
>Apple for one is known to be looking way ahead of "current market".
So was Nokia. So was Microsoft. It is easy get stuck into profitable segment and not to expand in fear of losses.
Getting into margins now is job of WP7 platform. Symbian is not fit into smartphone field (use S^3 if you don't believe) and these guys realise it. True that Meego will need lot of work, but there should be enough time to polish it before market they should be targing opens.