Ex-Nokia Staff To Build MeeGo-based Smartphones 200
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."
Re:Change the god damned name first... (Score:5, Informative)
No worries, I doubt there will be a product named MeeGo. In fact, it isn't even using MeeGo, but Mer [merproject.org], 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.
Re:"Jolla" means "dinghy" in Finnish? (Score:4, Informative)
The company started as a pulp mill in 1865 in the city of Nokia, whose name might be from the word for sable, marten or beaver.
Re:Change the god damned name first... (Score:2, Informative)
They are actually already based on Mer: :)
https://twitter.com/JollaMobile/status/221688205672595456 [twitter.com]
I guess they are just using the MeeGo name for publicity.
Re:Change the god damned name first... (Score:5, Informative)
There's only a few actual connections.
Intel: Moblin -> MeeGo -> (huge disconnect, much package shedding) -> Mer
Nokia: Maemo -> Harmattan
Samsung: Tizen
Re:Good luck (Score:4, Informative)
Finns pre-ordered at that same price by the thousand. I know _dozens_ of people with the N900, more than of any other phone I know. And I'm not just thinking of my colleagues who used the prototypes as our daily device while working on the project (that would be hundreds, not dozens), I'm thinking of non-Nokians who paid cold hard cash for the thing.
However, you're right, this would be a niche thing. The market is going through a catastrophic collapse towards a duoculture or even monoculture, the chance of anything new (or old but recycled) making it big now are absolutely minimal. They've got to fight over the scraps now. Achieving critical mass is not for domination - it's for staying alive.
Downer? Hah! You're barely making a dent compared with what Elop did to me! (By joining the company 2 years back...)
Re:Good luck (Score:5, 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.
Jolla does not mean a rescue boat - too small (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a finn,so I know what "Jolla" means.
Jolla means a very small sailing boat - not meant for rescue, but meant for people who want to go sailing alone on a very small boat.
(who either cannot afford bigger boat or just likes very small boats)
Jollas cant be used as rescue boats, they are too small for that.
Re:Wrong OS... (Score:5, Informative)
All of the mobile-specific stuff is going into Qt Mobility [nokia.com]. Anything missing will undoubtedly need to be added, I suspect that the team in question is aware of that.
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.
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.
No, I just find it highly annoying when people think others are supposed to just blindly believe what they say.
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.
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.
Re:Good luck (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good luck (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.