Symbian started to crash to quarter before Elop took over. Sure, him killing it didn't help, but he didn't start it. Their strategy at the time was to leave Symbian going to Meego, which probably wasn't going to be any better than WP. Tomi talks about the loved N9, but the fact is that Lumias have far outsold them.

I've been reading Tomi's blog for a few years now, and while he has some points, i started to question him when he talks about symbian as a top smartphone OS. Then i found another ex-Nokia employee who writes counters to Tomi and actually debunks some of Tomi's statistics. The blog is: Dominies Communicate
Turns out that Tomi sometimes just makes stuff up - eg, Only 40% of all smartphones sold are not touch screen. Unfortunately people believe Tomi's word. He was right about WP7, but wrong about Android and very wrong about Symbian. I'm not Elop isn't at fault, or has been exemplary, but Tomi's word shouldn't be taken at face value.

Metro applications are native code, and the ARM versions need to be built with the Visual Studio ARM compiler.
And it may very well have no issues with running unsigned applications once you change the execution policy, but i'm not sure. It's very possible that Microsoft will block unsigned party metro apps, much like iOS and Android do - altho with Android it's just a toggle. ARM devices are not intended to be a desktop replacement, if you want that you need to go for the x86 tablets running Windows 8. But again, i don't see them blocking ARM desktop apps, as you can run exe files built for ARM.

The software has to be built with an ARM compiler. In the same way an iPad app doesn't work out of the box on OSX, a Windows exe from x86 architecture will never work on Windows ARM.

From what I've seen, Windows 8 ARM comes with a full desktop and the ability to run exe files built for ARM. So if someone bothers to actually try and build their app with an ARM compiler, it'll probably just work.
Sideloading Metro apps should also be possible, as it is on the desktop. I might be wrong, but as far as i know there's nothing stopping you from opening up a powershell and running add-appxpackage. You just need an ARM build of the Metro app.
Aside from that, iOS devices don't allow sideloading unless you crack them, and this is a platform Notch has released on.

I'm also using Windows 8 as my primary desktop OS, and without anything installed, when I want to launch Visual Studio, i just hit the Windows Key and start typing "stu", press enter, and Bam, VS opens. Windows 8 also indexes control panel items, files, and i can launch apps that integrate search directly and resume the search. For example, i want to email a friend, i type the beginning of their name, select people, and instantly their contact card is brought up. The new "Start screen" is considerably better and faster than Windows 7's start menu.

Sure the Windows store is closed, but you can run unsigned apps more easily on Windows 8 than on the latest Mac OS. The Windows store itself is no more closed than Steam or iOS, and MUCH more open than XBLA ( not indie games ). And there's no lock down forcing you to use Windows Store apps, so Steam and all of it's games seem to work just fine. I was playing Limbo recently on my work Windows 8 machine, and a colleague of mine has been consistently playing Guild Wars, StarCraft 2 and Just Cause. Maybe they won't work on ARM, but then do many desktop apps work on ARM devices? Because i'm developing for it, I've been running Windows 8 at work since first developer preview, and have just installed RTM on my home laptop. I just don't understand all the hate it's getting, since i feel it's a step up from Windows 7. I still hit the Windows button and type the name of an app that I want, a function that works a lot better on Windows 8 than in Windows 7's slow-to-search start menu. I can even add external ( non-installed ) apps like Eclipse to the new Start page directly from Explorer without creating stupid shortcuts in some hidden start menu folder. And all the fud about MS giving up on desktop is nonsense. There have been subtle, but good improvements to the desktop experience, ranging from improved copy dialogs ( which can finally pause and stack - something I loved in KDE ) to a decent ribbon interface for Explorer windows. My only gripe is the right side settings charm on a multi-monitor setup. To be honest, i think the touch experience is not nearly as good as the desktop experience. I think there's a lot of people opening their mouths without having tested Windows 8 for prolonged periods.

-i'm sorry but i've been here since the beginning of summer and coming from Durban, South Africa, I barely even notices a climate change. We've had a lot of rain, but also weeks of fantastic sunny weather! -Women are expected to have a career, almost all of my colleagues gfs have really nice jobs. -And this country has more racial integration than South Africa.