With the temperature at 7 degrees it’s difficult to sit outside for too long although the sun, the atmosphere, the smiles on peoples faces make it difficult to head indoors. Tea always calls me at some point though so off to Starbucks we go. Their big mugs of black tea aren’t expensive and here in the middle of Bonn, sitting at the window, there’s lots to see.
As I walked through town it was tempting to check out the latest in the mobile phone shops but just one glance inside reminds of the experience. A bunch of out-of-date phones in non-working plastic dummy versions attached to ‘free’ price tags and 2-year contract commitments. TWO YEARS! I just can’t bring myself to go inside. Even if they had something new, I can’t face the sales staff!
As I sip my tea my thoughts drift back to MWC. Serious things are going to happen to one of the operating systems I have followed closely since it grew its first roots. Both Nokia and Intel will make announcements that affect the future of Meego. Nokia can’t drop it from their strategy because Intel need them and there are probably agreements in place that secure this. Intel have platforms in production that don’t support Windows so if Meego fails, 5-10 years of strategy needs re-working. Intel can’t just switch IADP and Appup over to Android or hope for massive take-up on Netbooks.
What I really hope happens over the next week are three things.
1 – Nokia re-affirm their commitment to Meego and Meego products at the high end, the advanced, leading edge.
2 – Intel announce product partners for Meego on Intel
3 – HP joins the ecosystem by sharing software and engineers, making the WEBOS user interface work with the Meego core and embracing Qt as a development platform.
HP will make an announcement about WEBOS and WEBOS products today. The ex head of Maemo at Nokia (Ari Jaaksi) now works for HP so theres some good connections there too. HP, Intel and Nokia need to stimulate a developer ecosystem and can’t do it on their own. I can’t think of a better partner for Meego.
What Nokia does in the meantime is of no interest to me whatsoever. Symbian will be a mid-tier OS and whatever Nokia decides to do as a bridge will be forgotten in a year. Putting Windows phone 7 in as the corporate offering and freeing up symbian for non corporate focus makes sense. Using Android doesn’t. Meego still needs to be the 2-5 year high-end solution though.
At least thats what I think.
My tea is nearly finished now (but not cold, showing you how damn easy and quick it is to thumb-type on the Galaxy Tab) and its time for me to head back home to spend some hours with the family. Until the HP event starts that is!
Pics from the Galaxy Tab. The 3.5MP cam works well when there’s a lot of bright light around!
