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MeeGo Startup Jolla Signs Phone Deal
chill writes "Mobile company Jolla, which is continuing development of Linux-based mobile OS Meego, signed its first sales deal today, with D.Phone, China's largest smartphone retail chain. Jolla has not released details about its first product, which is expected to be revealed later this year. The company has not yet received access to any Nokia patents."
When they decide to put countries like China on the backburner and start making things like this available in more conventional markets, this might be an improvement. Otherwise, it's just the N9 situation all over again.
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Hopefully they'll have a model with modern hardware specs, matching the the best Android and Apple phones.
If their best model sports some 320x400 resolution and 3 generation old graphics hardware, it'll be a non-starter with a lot of ppl. If it can compete toe to toe, then I'll consider buying one. Let's say something comparable to the Galaxy S3: 1280x720 pixel screen, one microSD slot, a modern GPU, multi-touch, good GPS, and so on. Be actually competitive, and I'll give it a shot. Ship 3 gen old hardware, and sorry, no dice.
If you're a startup I don't see how it's a mistake. From TFA: "China was selected because it is the largest, most rapidly expanding smartphone market in the world, according to Jolla Chairman Antti Saarnio." This seems like a logical first step to me. Get established there first, then move on to more expensive markets once you are established.
I'm a little out of the loop on MeeGo development, but with the recent patent trolling and Microsoft loving from Nokia what makes Jolla think that even previous MeeGo agreements will be honored? If they are even enforceable Nokia has chosen a side in the free vs non-free, and just like any sinking ship honesty and goodwill are the first to go. It's not like a major corporation has ever crushed a smaller one just to be mean... Elop is did learn from the best on that one.
Now that Meego isn't beholden to corporate constraints on technology used, is there any plan to go back to the deb packaging system used in Maemo or are the developers sticking with rpm? It would probably be nice for developers if the phone ran a Meego user interface on top of a standard debian core.
They don't have the patents to release it in the US or most of the rest of the First World.
Companies with key patents to smart phones can't even avoid import bans and I would bet they infringe on a lot Nokia patents that they developed.
The N9 did not get into the US because MS did not want it beating their OS.
Despite that, the N9 has outsold the entire Whorephone platform.
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Man, you feel strongly about this issue. Jolla doesn't have to care. They will make phones appropriate for the markets they can get into the most easily, and make some starter money, and build their business from there. They don't have to conquer the world on the first day.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Has there really been anything that has started in China and made it big in Europe/North America? I really can't think of anything. Sure, there's been stuff that's been Korean and Japanese and sold quite well, but the Japanese and Korean markets are much different than the Chinese market.
They might not be as successful as their Japanese counterparts, but from the top of my head Huawei, Lenovo and Haier are chinese.
Some time ago Japan was today's China, they were just copying and improving upon others designs, and they were regarded as lower quality products. Now they are leading in the automobile industry, electronics, and pretty much everything.
I think the same kind of evolution is possible in China in the next few years. The only thing they are lacking is the ethics and values, but maybe its not necessary.
If you're a startup I don't see how it's a mistake. From TFA: "China was selected because it is the largest, most rapidly expanding smartphone market in the world, according to Jolla Chairman Antti Saarnio." This seems like a logical first step to me. Get established there first, then move on to more expensive markets once you are established.
Supplementary: if Nokia decides to use their patent war chest to attack it, they'll still have the Chinese market (which is also the producing one, thus wouldn't care too much about Nokia's patent). If they start in the Western world, they'd be hang high and dry in no time if a patent war is started against them.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Look back to the USA of Edison's day and you'll see how ethics and values were rarely allowed to get in the way of a sale.
Apparently you have forgotten about how the N900 and N9 have sold, where the latter outdid the whorephones combined. Salespeople were complaining that they couldn't move the Lumia devices while they could move plenty of N9's if they could stock them
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While it may feature no user interface of its own, since Mer is Qt based and so is the KDE family of user interfaces, this phone could use Plasma Active or a mobile version of Razor-qt as its interface
The China-first strategy seems brilliant to me. Far more price sensitive, which plays to their strength.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
... Has there really been anything that has started in China and made it big in Europe/North America?
OK, How about silk, paper, gun powder, fireworks and bazillion other things chinese had ages before west heard of them?
China is a very big and diverse country, and going China doesn't necessarily mean going low cost nowadays. Costal China is first world (or close enough already, in any case not 3rd world by far), with a very high adoption rate for smartphones. And not crappy ones, also high end ones. Plus, Android is impaired in China by no official Google Play support if I understand correctly, and side channels are full of malware making Android reputation poor. The iPhone doesn't support TD-SCDMA so is not carried by the first operator, China Mobile. WP is mostly nowhere (as everywhere). There is a gap to fill there, and if you come with a new OS it may be easier to get a foothold in such a context than in Western countries with entrenched iPhone and Android, and only a few slahsdotters like me possibly interested in a Meego phone ;) Historically China Mobile was interested in Meego for this reason BTW. And Nokia was very popular there. So there could be a card to play for a well spec'd phone in China, seen as a successor to the old Nokia.
I don't see how their first device being made for the Chinese market precludes them from making deals with other manufacturers for devices that target the Western high-end market. I'd assume that it's sensible to accept a reasonable offer instead of telling everyone interested to go home if you don't consider their device to be prestigious enough. If D.Phone made the first reasonable offer then D.Phone is their first manufacturer.
And no, I'm not particularly interested in MeeGo. I don't spend enough money on my prepaid contract to justify more than ten bucks for a new phone and I doubt they'll cater to my market segment. I'm just intrigued by how you seem to think that them not coming out with an iPhone killer first somehow means that MeeGo is dead in your market forever. Shouldn't a deal with the Chinese give them the money and credentials to more aggressively market toward companies that are big in the Western markets?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
WP has crappy multitasking, and all your data are belong to Microsoft.
With IOS all your data are belong to Apple. And everything is controller by Apple.
With Android all your data are belong to Google, and performance is bad.
With Symbian the user owns his data, but performance is bad, sw development is really pain, and UI is bad. RIP.
What is needed is operating system that allows the user to own his data, has good performance, and allows the user to use the device the way he wants.
Meego/Mer gives this.