Nokia not welcome.

The most interesting bit of this piece over at The International Herald Tribune is not the it's-not-that-special, it's-just-an-announcement, we-could-have-done-it-too-if-we-wanted-to-but-we-don't rhetoric coming from Nokia. Rather, it's this sentence:

...Google did not invite Nokia to join its Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 companies that includes Motorola, Samsung, and other phone makers.

Now that got my attention. They weren't invited? I, honestly, cannot think of a good reason why not. Let's face it, Nokia is an industry leader because it, for the most part, makes pretty good phones. Maybe it has something to do with Nokia's unrepentant Symbian love?

Maybe it's 'cause Sergey is Russian, and the Russians and the Fins have a tempestuous history? (This is a joke, people, calm down.)

It makes one wonder--was Verizon 'invited'? AT&T (who is, apparently, "in negotiations" with Google)? Was there a method to Google's selection of OHA players? Were they purposefully looking for the second- and third-place carriers and makers (at least in America), who may be more likely to support an industry-changing movement?