At today’s big Nokia / Microsoft announcement, Nokia’s ballsy new CEO Stephen Elop dished some details about the Finnish phone maker’s plans with regard to the OS future handsets will be running. Obviously, Window Phone 7 featured heavily, however more interesting were the plans for Nokia’s own platforms.
Nokia is phasing Symbian out entirely, to be replaced with WP7 in the near future. Although the move is certainly an abrupt one, it wasn’t exactly difficult to see it coming. MeeGo, Nokia’s joint effort with Intel, has also been effectively killed before it even launches, with Nokia slashing its budget and saying that once the OS ships, the MeeGo team will “change their focus into an exploration of future platforms, future devices, future user experiences.”.
This doesn’t sound like good news for those who have been hoping MeeGo would be the mobile OS than can finally bridge the gap between the netbook, tablet and smartphone. While a working OS will be shipped, it doesn’t sound like Nokia plan to support or update it in any meaningful way after launch.
Elop said MeeGo will be treated as a “an opportunity to learn”, in order to better position themselves for the next big thing in mobile. Stark contrast from a year ago, when Intel and Nokia were saying MeeGo would be the next big thing.
Intel has yet to comment on Nokia’s scaling back of MeeGo operations, but it will be interesting to see how the announcement affects development on their end.
UPDATE: Intel have responded to Nokia’s cutbacks, saying they’re still moving ahead at full-speed with MeeGo development –
“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.”
Images via Engadget
