Intel and Nokia have a long history of collaboration and if you look back to the early days of kernel builds for Moblin 1.0 you’ll find Nokia engineers in the mix. It was never a big secret that the stacks, the association with the Linux Foundation and the focus towards ‘Mobile Computers’ meant that the two companies were working towards the same goal. Minor differences in Linux stack meant that a shift by Moblin over to the QT UI framework (revealed at DevMob 2010 this year) was the last bit of information that I needed to prompt me into sending out the following tweet.
“Here’s a wild thought -> Moblin for handhelds and Maemo 6 will merge under Linux Foundation late 2010. ”
Clearly I was wrong about the timing but the rest was spot on. Now we have MeeGo.
With Intel’s 700-strong team of Moblin contributors and a huge number of Maemo contributors we’re instantly looking at one of (if not the) biggest Linux development efforts in the world. All that needs to be done now is to add the 3rd party applications and to get the OEMs on board. MeeGo is the sign that the marketing effort for app developers and customers has begun. Intel and Nokia want to be the serious alternative to Android across mobile computers.
Many new questions are raised here about the joint marketing effort that will start now. How will the two companies bring together their developer communities? Will they merge their app-store frameworks? Will we see joint efforts on the hardware? Is Intel contributing software to a killer ARM-based MeeGo device in 2011 or have they secured hardware deals for the future platforms? How will this balance-shift towards Europe affect the developer community and marketing teams? What will the roadmap look like now?
In terms of devices, nothing can change. The LG GW990 will launch in the second half of 2010 and Nokia have to move forward with their next MeeGo-based smartphone. Maybe nothing needs to change though. This is just a deal-seal and huge huge marketing message to Google. Intel and Nokia want to work together to make the best mobile computers in the world.
We should be gettting videos and commentary from the Intel team over the next few days so stay tuned.
Disclosure: My travel to MWC 2010 is sponsored by Intel
Real question here, is what will indeed change? What are their weapons to fight google and apple? Both Google and Apple are well implemented in the large scale consumer market, and Google is growing every day. What will they offer to attract software and hardware developers, and what’s the strategy to quickly get in the mass sales?
I still think Moblin lost his change a long time ago, took them forever to show up anything visible and interesting to normal consumer. Same with Maemo. They need to get out of the niche of aficionados, (since you are in Spain at the point of this post a spanish work always look good!) if they really want to succeed. I think this last fact is something everyone agrees on!
Joao Oliveira.
RT @chansearrington MeeGo Unites Moblin (X86) and Maemo (ARM) as Major Mobile OS http://dlvr.it/1y4P | Can't wait to see ''the fruit''
"MeeGo Unites Moblin (X86) and Maemo (ARM) as Major Mobile OS …" http://tinyurl.com/ydngkk8
@BassoPT
Funny how everyone’s so keen to point out that it’s not really any good until it’s mainstream. Careful, wouldn’t want anyone to be different now.