Nokia Preps Linux OS For Low-End Smartphones 199
itwbennett writes "Nokia is going after the low-end smartphone market with a Linux-based OS code-named 'Meltemi.' The phones are expected to cost under $100 without subsidies. A Nokia spokesman's no-comment comment went like this: 'Of course, we don't comment on future products or technologies. However, I can say that our Mobile Phones team has a number of exciting projects in the works that will help connect the next billion consumers to the Internet.'"
WTF??! (Score:3, Insightful)
Is there any level on which this decision makes sense in light of Nokia's direction?
Any phone smart enough to run Linux us smart enough to run WP7.
And Nokia? Embracing Linux? After jettisoning MeeGo?
And Stephen Elop? Linux?! HUH?!
Consistency? What's that?
Does Nokia have any strategic direction at all?!
Re:WTF??! (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there any level on which this decision makes sense in light of Nokia's direction?
Looks like different factions within Nokia competing/fighting against each other.
Re:First they ignore you... (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe that Microsoft can do whatever they want with Nokia.
The board chose a CEO who did nothing visible, then forced Nokia into dependence on Microsoft. The shareholders reacted by selling madly. I don't know what Nokia's goals are aside from selling phones, but they don't seem to be reacting fast enough (especially with Elop pulling a multi-Osborne at the start of the year.)
So yeah, I expect that if MS tells Nokia to marginalize or kill something off, they'll try as hard as they can to do so. Elop has to stay on good terms with them or he'll ride Nokia into the gutter.
Re:Now there's a threesome /. doesn't see every da (Score:2, Insightful)
Having worked at Microsoft, there's no way I think this will happen in the next few years.
Microsoft has a very strong culture of "not invented here", and is completely paranoid about open source contaminating their products. Any involvement with open source (and in particular, GPL software) requires a monstrous amount of paperwork and negotiation, and will be shot down in nearly all cases. Since Microsoft already has their phone OS, they will not use Linux.
Re:Now there's a threesome /. doesn't see every da (Score:2, Insightful)
- MS will keep building up ways to make money off Linux. They'll spin two ways; they'll claim that their work exploiting^H^H^H^H extending Linux legitimizes their right to claim license fees for the rest of it, and they'll slowly solidify their position of "ownership" due to some bullshit patents they have.
So wait, Red Hat, Canonical, Google and other companies are all warmly welcome to contribute and make improvements, but when it's Microsoft we should go "noo, we don't play with guys like that. go away."
They're all profiting (or as you say, exploiting) Linux just the way you describe.
Re:First they ignore you... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, it is best left unspoken lest regulators have evidence later on.
Yet Nokia, a company with some management issues, gets an ex-Microsoft CEO and suddenly burns down everything they had invested in, in exchange for a dependency on a company known to destroy "partners."
A CEO and pocket change compared to what it would cost to actually buy Nokia.
The utter insanity of decisions coming out of that company now just suggest to me that there's a ton of politics, back and forth, and infighting, and that there's no unified leadership in the company. After all, suddenly this when Elop showed slides basically saying "within a few years anything not Microsoft will be gone."
It could be an escape route (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft doesn't have a good history of playing nice with partners. They tend to die painful deaths and their history in the mobile space is that of spectacular failure.
Scaling Linux from Meltemi up from a low spec to a high spec smartphone would be relatively easy. If the MS "partnership" goes the way all the previous ones have gone, Nokia would be dead, full stop. This way they may have an escape route.
Oh and "feature phone" these days is 100MHz with 32Mb RAM, 2Gb storage. That sounds like a 30 user system to me.