This is a very comprehensive overview of the recent history of Nokia and Symbian, including the distinction between the core OS and the UI layer, as well as a good analysis of the reasons for the recent announcements. It's a worthwhile read for anyone who thinks that "Nokia is dead" or "Symbian is an outdated OS": the facts are more complex, and significant.
tl;dr: it seems like Nokia's new priority #1 is improving their traction with developers, and is demonstrating it by taking pretty bold steps in that direction (e.g. canning large amounts of development in progress because it would have led to more fragmentation between UI toolkits). It also looks like priority #2 is improving their UI.
These are signs that their new management team a) gets it, and b) is willing to make difficult decisions.
Some of the comments on the article are worth a read as well (but only if you're interested in the topic, as they're quite lengthy and surrounded by dross).
tl;dr: it seems like Nokia's new priority #1 is improving their traction with developers, and is demonstrating it by taking pretty bold steps in that direction (e.g. canning large amounts of development in progress because it would have led to more fragmentation between UI toolkits). It also looks like priority #2 is improving their UI.
These are signs that their new management team a) gets it, and b) is willing to make difficult decisions.