Ex-Nokia staffers team up to revive MeeGo
Jolla on a rolla?
A number of former Nokia employees have banded together to maintain the MeeGo smartphone OS and even release new hardware running the software.
Formally launched this weekend - though its LinkedIn page says it has been around since 2011 - Jolla "will design, develop and sell new MeeGo based smartphones", the company pledged.
The privately owned Finland-based firm would seem to have the expertise: "The Jolla team consists of a substantial number of MeeGo's core engineers and directors, and is aggressively hiring the top MeeGo talent to contribute to the next generation smartphone production."
Among them: Marc Dillon, formerly MeeGo principal engineer - and, before that, Maemo Principal Engineer - and now Jolla Chief Operating Officer.
Nokia's N9
Other staffers include Stefano Mosconi, CIO, another former Nokia employee, and Antti Saarnio, Chairman of the Jolla board, who has a background in investment, and mergers and acquisitions consultancy.
Jolla's OS doesn't appear to be MeeGo as Nokia offered it, however. The firm describes its software as "MeeGo-based", founded on Qt and with a new UI on top. QML and HTML 5 will be part of the package too.
Jolla hasn't yet provided a roadmap for its plans.
Nokia's ongoing financial woes saw the one-time phone giant rid itself of 10,000 workers in June this year, among them its Qt and QML teams, gained from its 2008 acquistion of Trolltech.
MeeGo was knocked on the head in 2011. A merger of Nokia's Maemo OS and Intel's Moblin mobile Linux project, MeeGo was once seen as Symbian's heir apparent as the future not only of Nokia's smartphones but its tablets too. Instead, the company opted to buy in Microsoft's Windows Phone.
Nokia passed MeeGo on to the Linux Foundation, which later put the OS on the back burner in order to focus on a new mobile Linux, the HTML 5-centric Tizen. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Meego
Seriously? I am using it daily and it's a generation ahead of iOS, android or any version of WP.
Have a heart
It's Monday and I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm.
You've been where?
So you looked a one random location. How about http://n9-apps.com/ or http://store.ovi.com/applications#/applications/?terminalId=N9 or any of the Apt repositories you can use with your MeeGo device.
If the new company can turn a profit, that's all that matters. It just needs to find a niche, not to aim for the top 3. There are plenty of people wanting a proper open source mobile device, not an Apple walled garden or a Google ad trojan.
great news
MeeGo is *really* good. It's slick and functions really well. In fact I have trouble faulting it. Also all the people I've shown it to are impressed and ask where they can buy it - dear me, if only they could.
That's why it was so gaulling for Elop to cast it aside in favor of a far inferior OS in WP. They'd done all the super expensive R&D.
Great news that someone is going to capitalise on the work already done.
Re: Nokia's plan B?
Seriously doubt that Nokia would buy them. If they are successful, they may end up buying Nokia itself
There are a lot of moving parts in play.
I wish them well since they know low power usage and they would cater to a market that wants to have their phone be more of a phone than a gaming platform.
