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Ex-Nokia Staff To Build MeeGo-based Smartphones

Posted by timothy on from the hope-springs-eternal dept.

Snirt writes "A group of ex-Nokia staff and MeeGo enthusiasts has formed Jolla (Finnish for 'dinghy'), a mobile startup with the aim of bringing new MeeGo devices to the market. According to its LinkedIn page, Jolla consists of directors and core professionals from Nokia's MeeGo N9 organization, together with some of the best minds working on MeeGo in the communities."

5 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Change the god damned name first... by Microlith · · Score: 5, Informative

    No worries, I doubt there will be a product named MeeGo. In fact, it isn't even using MeeGo, but Mer, which spun off from MeeGo when it became obvious that Nokia was going to walk away and Intel was off to pursue other things.

    Jolla will probably name it something else exclusive to them. All that matters is by going with Mer (or as they've been saying, MeeGo) you know one thing: Qt.

  2. Re:Change the god damned name first... by Microlith · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's only a few actual connections.

    Intel: Moblin -> MeeGo -> (huge disconnect, much package shedding) -> Mer
    Nokia: Maemo -> Harmattan
    Samsung: Tizen

  3. Re:Good luck by Microlith · · Score: 4, Informative

    The N9's Harmattan is basically Maemo 6, only without GTK and the "Aegis" security system in place. It was "MeeGo-compatible" due to sharing a number of platform APIs and including Qt, but not MeeGo due to lacking some APIs MeeGo had as well as being DEB based and not RPM based.

  4. Re:Wrong OS... by Microlith · · Score: 4, Informative

    Where are the higher level frameworks in QT? Perhaps they are in Mer, but I could find no reference for that, which indicates there's not much Mer there.

    All of the mobile-specific stuff is going into Qt Mobility. Anything missing will undoubtedly need to be added, I suspect that the team in question is aware of that.

    Mobile programming these days is a LOT more than just being able to draw or do simple animations or being able to hit SQLLite.

    No shit. Do keep in mind that this is the same team that developed the N9, I'm pretty sure they're aware of what deficiencies exist in the available APIs.

    That would imply I ever had any "empty implications", whatever the hell that means.

    Your frequent "proclamations" or unsupported statements for or against things that, unless prompted, you never give reference to or back up. It's a very general thing that you have a habit of doing here on Slashdot.

    Is that something like when you are not a mobile developer and you cast aspirations of those who are when they try to tell you how things really work?

    No, I just find it highly annoying when people think others are supposed to just blindly believe what they say.

    Yes, if they actually wanted to have meaning in the market instead of chasing their tails. Instead the prediction of their demise is sadly all too certain to make.

    And jumping on board with a platform that is being shoveled out the door by HP, with no future development in sight, is a smart move to make? Who knows, they may adopt some of what's in webOS, maybe merge it into Qt. We don't have visibility into much more than what's been pointed out today. Odd that, given the sparse info, you're already making proclamations of their doom.

    They could have folded some aspects of MeeGo into the underlying WebOS infrastructure, but Qt 5 is ANCIENT compared to modern mobile OS's. They will get nowhere with this little vanity project, which makes me sad indeed given the effort they will undoubtedly sink into it. I despise wasted potential.

    Then go back to your iOS development and let everyone else try to ensure there are more options than just Apple/Google, and maybe enjoy a niche. Not everyone needs to take on the two beasts out of the gate or serve every possible customer, they just need to be profitable.

  5. Re:Good luck by DMiax · · Score: 5, Informative

    the company was not bleeding money. they had a profit instead and it was also growing. However it was expected that the symbian based revenue and profits (it made profits) would be down some time around next year (2013). Elop could have delayed the current crash by two years at the very least by just doing nothing.

    So yes, something needed to be done, but there was no hurry, and surely no need to actively kill symbian and all phones that were already being produced and focus only on something that came several months later.

    The in house OSes are currently the only chance Nokia has of not being dismantled. If Elop took the time to evaluate the strategy maybe he could have had a backup plan. It seems instead that he wanted to put Nokia in a place where it was either success with windows or bankruptcy with windows, and the "staying alive with our own OS" was not really an option for him. Now it is clear that the path will be bankruptcy with windows.