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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."

13 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Good luck by Tancred · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it's too late due to the developer network effect (same goes for Firefox OS and even Windows Phone). But I'd like to be wrong about that.

    1. Re:Good luck by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

      And with the rest of the Slashdot posters who chime in they could sell several dozen. Probably even enough to give Windows Phone a run for it's money.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. 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.

    3. Re:Good luck by davydagger · · Score: 4, Interesting

      sure there are.

      the n9 sold more phones with no support than the overhyped windows phone in the same time peroid.

      People will ask for it by name, and the people who want it are usually willing to pay, as its more than just a phone, as the rest of them are to other people.

    4. Re:Good luck by davydagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      nobody wants windows on a cellphone. People only use windows on the PC because they feel they are stuck with it.

      Partnering with microsoft was a terrible idea. Unless windows 8 phone is some total game changer, its all lost.

      They were much better sticking with maemo, because at least when you have GNU/linux, you have the monopoly on a solid niche. All of which are rabid fanatics who both shell out 10x money for a phone, only to turn around and do free work on it. When you have windows, you really don't have a base. The techies don't want it. The average user is comfortable with android, and the newbsauces, trendies have apple. Even corporate is going to apple, and there is nothing that windows phone does the iphone doesn't to counter this trend.

      As for microsoft, "windows" is a toxic brand. If I were any other company, I'd be hesitant in selling "windows" anything. If I were microsoft, I would call "windows phone" "xbox phone", as the xbox brand is far less hated. In fact, I'd discontinue the windows brand alltogether except for corporate, and just use the xbox name.

    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.

  2. 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.

  3. How long until their market share exceeds Nokia's? by micheas · · Score: 5, Funny

    12 months?

    --
    Work bio at MMWD
  4. 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

  5. You've got until... by Duncan+J+Murray · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...my unreplaceable one-of-a-kind Nokia N900 becomes irreparable, to come up with a phone worthy as its successor. It seems pretty solid, so I'll give you a few years. (fingers crossed)

    The mobile market definitely needs a full gnu/linux phone. In fact, the N900 follows on from a privileged few mobile devices with desktop-like capability - the psion 3a, psion 5mx, Nokia 9500 communicator, Nokia E90 (only just). And it was only really the Psions that didn't shy from giving you the full OS experience just because it was a mobile device. Why can't my mobile device have a full fledged file-manager with drag-and-drop capability or a desktop where I can place regularly used files as well as applications?

    But maybe I'm mad - apparently you don't need these things on the desktop either.

  6. 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.

  7. Re:Change the god damned name first... by davydagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    well consider its the successor to maemo, I'd say most of the nerds want one. Like they wanted maemo.

    Why? its a gnu/linux cellphone. Nerds like gnu/liunx. This is slashdot. News for nerds. I'm pretty sure that to the average slashdot reader, that something this nerdy is a very big deal. Especially after the whole nokia/microsoft debacle. Again, nerds are smart people and aren't driven off by silly things like labels and driven towards marketing campaigns. They are driven because its going to be easy to modify with a great community, which makes it more of a hobby than a cellphone. Being nerds, modifying cellphones is a very legitimate hobby. Again this is slashdot.

    Find your way back to gawker please.

  8. Re:Free OS = Cancer by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is really dangerous for Nokia. Non-compete clauses have no effect here as these guys don't "compete" in the strictest sense.

    Demanding promises not to compete are not a feature of Finnish business life. In fact, it's the opposite: when laying off workers, Nokia has always pledged to help set them up with another firm doing something similar to what they were working on at Nokia. The idea is that since Nokia has decided some project no longer makes sense for its bottom line, it can't do any harm if people keep pursuing it at another firm.

    This is what is playing out now with Jolla and has happened numerous times before with other Nokia spinoffs.