Intel Committed To MeeGo Despite Nokia Defection 228
CWmike writes "Intel put on a brave face Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, insisting that there is continued strong support from it and many companies for MeeGo, the open source software platform that Nokia last week said it would abandon in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. 'Intel is disappointed at Nokia but life goes on,' said Intel's Renee James. 'Our decision and resolve on MeeGo is only stronger.' She pointed to a long list of companies participating in MeeGo development, including competitors AMD, TI and ST Ericsson; operators including Orange, Telefonica and Sprint; and software companies including Novell and Wind River. Intel expects to see MeeGo tablets shipping this year based on its Atom chip. Handsets will follow, James said. Despite its enthusiasm, however, Intel is sure to be negatively impacted by Nokia's decision."
How many can the market support? (Score:4, Interesting)
So we've got several big contenders or those who want to be in the "smart phone" space (an increasingly meaningless term, as even my dumb Symbian phone can do a fair bit). Android and iOS are the biggest, then you've got Blackberry, Win Mobile 7, WebOS, MeeGo, and in the "dumber" category Symbian.
Three of these are Linux-based to one extent or another: Android, WebOS, and MeeGo. WIth the way apps get developed and sold, it's not clear to me that all three can survive on top of their more-closed counterparts (Blackerry and iOS, primarily). I've heard that various platforms are seeking compatibility with Android apps, but I doubt it'll be perfect.
Given that Nokia seems to be giving up on it, MeeGo seems like the obvious candidate to be the one dropped (its technical merits aside). There's plenty of fragmentation within Android alone now. Personally, I think the biggest potential loss is either the dropping or downplaying of Qt by Nokia. It'd be awesome to see Qt become a cross-mobile-platform toolkit to aid developers (on everything but iOS, of course). While I switched away from KDE during the 4.X debacle, it's clear that Qt was superior in many ways. Its commercial underpinnings seemed to really bolster its quality.
There could still be plan B for Nokia.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wrapper (Score:2, Interesting)
"Define dumb". Consumers seem to be enjoying the shiny restrictions on choice lately in mobile op systems.
Intel CPUs not in the mobile space because... (Score:4, Interesting)
[the original article wonders why intel hasn't broken into the mobile space, successfully]
Intel's flagship CPU design consumes far too much power, and that really is the end of the matter. I really don't understand why people don't understand this.
The entire x86 architecture is optimised for speed and low latency, whereas ARM processors are optimised for low power, trading that low power for higher latency.
The interesting thing is that the latency trade-offs made in ARM (and MIPS) processor designs becomes... very much less relevant as the CPU geometries go down. 28nm means that ARM CPUs can easily run at 2.5ghz, and MIPS CPUs at somewhere around 2ghz. Combine these CPUs with modern 1066 DDR3 RAM i find it difficult to see how Intel and AMD, with their highly speed-optimised - and bloated - CISC architectures can beat the price-performance and performance-per-watt metrics in the all-important "good enough for most people" bracket.
Sure Intel and AMD's offerings will always be "fastest", but do you really need a Six or Eight Core 4ghz CPU costing $1000 to do a few emails, when a $7 750mhz Dual-Core MIPS will do the exact same job?
So right now, we're witnessing a series of "ship-jumping" moves - the blind leading the blind - in desperate bids to stay afloat, where the sensible companies are sticking with Free Software OSes, based around the Linux Kernel, because it's Free Software and the Linux Kernel that can run on absolutely any platform, and Windows simply can't.
Microsoft cut off the DEC Alpha, PowerPC and MIPS platforms, over 15 years ago in order for Windows NT to compete internally with Windows 95; now they're paying the price and they're going to take down with them anyone else who clings to their coat-tails.
Re:How many can the market support? (Score:4, Interesting)
Cell-phone form factor can run full-blown GNU/Linux today. N900 was doing it in 2009. There are no more legitimate, hardware-related excuses for OS fragmentation: it exists solely because it pays to lock your customer into a proprietary platform. (This strategy pays off because a lot of otherwise smart people go stupid when they enter a store, and the reason for the latter is ads, but that's besides the point.) Don't be confused by Android being open-source: every Android-based phone on the market today is a proprietary platform. If official kernel security updates can brick your phone just because you dared to gain root, it's a proprietary platform. If your phone cannot work without proprietary drivers in the kernel, it's a proprietary platform.
If cell-phone makers wanted to express good will towards their customers, they would throw some cash at improving Linux graphics and sound and released a lean, feature-full, and completely free cell-phone OS. We already have Wayland and Pulse Audio. Sans a few kinks, Linux is ready to go as an entertainment platform. They could still lock it up and sell it to idiots, and the idiots would still buy the locked-up versions (it's 2011 and people still buy Windows and OS X to fill spreadsheets, case closed). This would be cheaper for everyone, there would be no fragmentation outside of gaming, and everyone would have the productivity apps like PDF reader, ODT editor, Web browser. All these apps are already written. They are free, stable, and they were running for years in GNU/Linux and *BSD.
I am disappointed in Nokia. I really, really like N900 but now I feel like I voted with my wallet and got bitch-slapped. I am seriously thinking about getting a tiny laptop with no Windows tax, a USB 3g (4g if later) adapter with open-source Linux drivers provided by manufacturer (yes, there are a bunch of them on the market), and ditching this whole cell-phone mess. And if you ever need to contact me, be it emergency, work, or leisure, write me a frigging email or join my XMPP server.
Re:Apps (Score:3, Interesting)
No, but I've seen comments from people who tried. It generally comes in two parts - the first one is "oh, this is cool". The second one, coming shortly thereafter, "oh, this is so inconvenient".