Nokia's marginalization of MeeGo came as a surprise to Intel

Yesterday's announcement by Nokia that it's switching to Windows Phone 7 as its primary smartphone platform has already had, and will continue to have, great repercussions for plenty of parties besides the Finnish company and its new best bud Microsoft. One of the biggest effects of that deal was that Nokia now no longer considers MeeGo -- the open-source OS it was co-developing with Intel -- an item of priority, classifying it as a "learning project." No prizes for guessing Intel's nowhere near happy about that, but would you have also guessed Nokia kept Chipzilla in the dark about its new direction until the day it announced it to the world? Such is the word from TechCrunch's well placed sources, who also say that Nokia dedicated only a three-man external team to the development of UI customizations for MeeGo. Not exactly the hugest investment in the world, we'd say, and when you consider Nokia and Microsoft already have concept devices drawn up, you've got to think plans to abandon MeeGo as a sincere flagship strategy were materializing in Espoo a long time before this event. It would probably have been nice to tell Intel, though, just to be classy. Hit the source link for more detail, including confirmation that Nokia's N9-00, its first planned MeeGo device, was canned -- apparently due to complaints from operators about its hinge.

Source: (Engadget)

Intel to Continue Work on MeeGo

If Intel has its way, MeeGo won't be fading away as quickly as Nokia wants it to. The open sourced operating system, which has yet to make a retail presence, is still part of Intel's strategy, with or without Nokia. The company remarks:

While we are disappointed with Nokia's decision, Intel is not blinking on MeeGo. We remain committed and welcome Nokia's continued contribution to MeeGo open source.

Our strategy has always been to provide choice when it comes to operating systems, a strategy that includes Windows, Android, and MeeGo. This is not changing.

MeeGo is not just a phone OS, it supports multiple devices. And we're seeing momentum across multiple segments - automotive systems, netbooks, tablets, set-top boxes and our Intel silicon will be in a phone that ships this year.

It's hard to imagine Intel drumming up a new hardware partner at this point, given that most OEMs have already chosen their side of the smartphone wars. Though it's unlikely, Intel could make its own hardware with MeeGo as a hedge against its other investments. Or, it can continue to work with non-phone partners to integrate MeeGo into other devices, like netbooks, tablets, etc.

Source: (Pocketnow)

What is MeeGo?

Simply put, MeeGo is Nokia's answer to Android. Intel and Nokia have been working on it together to try and bring new life into Nokia's product offerings. It's got potential. Currently MeeGo is still "pre-alpha" and the UI is still developing. The Nokia version of the UI is very heavily "Nokia influenced", rather than Intel's UI for netbooks and tablets.

MeeGo is a Linux-based, open-source operating system which includes various API's and is finger-friendly. All of which sound very similar to Android.

According to the MeeGo website:

"MeeGo is an open source, Linux project which brings together the Moblin project, headed up by Intel, and Maemo, by Nokia, into a single open source activity. MeeGo integrates the experience and skills of two significant development ecosystems, versed in communications and computing technologies. The MeeGo project believes these two pillars form the technical foundations for next generation platforms and usages in the mobile and device platforms space."

So, why would Nokia choose to start from the ground-up with another OS, when Android has already proven itself in the industry? None of the nearly 100,000 apps that are already written for Android will work on Nokia phones running Meego. What does Nokia have against Android? Leave you thoughts in the comments below.



Via: (PocketNow)

Aava Moorestown phone running MeeGo hits the wilds

If you don't understand the significance of what you're looking at then you're probably not paying attention. First off, that Aava slab of WoW slaying smartphone is underpinned by Intel's Moorestown processor. Yes, Intel, not ARM, as Chipzilla gets serious about taking its silicon mobile. Second, that's the freshly minted MeeGo OS for handsets that just made its first alpha appearance last week. And it just happens to be the OS that Nokia, the world's largest handset manufacturer, will be building its future generation of super smartphones upon. We'll give you a second to take it all in.

Fortunately for us, the device is in the hands of Steve "Chippy" Paine over at Carrypad / UMPC Portal. As such, this is just the first of many revelations to come. Hit the man up on Twitter if you want to follow his adventure first hand.

Via: (Engadget)