* Stephen Elop the former Microsoft employee (head of the Business Division) and later Nokia CEO with his infamous "Burning Platform" memo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#CEO_of_Nokia
* Some former Nokia employees called it "Elop = hostile takeover of a company for a minimum price through CEO infiltration": http://gizmodo.com/how-nokia-employees-are-reacting-to-the-m...
Maybe they would have had more sales with an Android phone, but I'm not sure it would have made a bit enough difference to prevent this buyout. Elop set Nokia up to be bought out by being a major windows phone maker. It may have been a better long-term bet than Android.
Nokia has never needed a software edge to crush its rivals. They just needed to keep making phones that wouldn't break if you dropped them.
When you already have a massive competitive advantage (Nokia's reputation for making reliable hardware), you don't dive into a niche.