It seems Nokia, a leading mobile handset manufacturer, has hit another setback while fighting for its supremacy in mobile industry. A recent departure of Ari Jaaksi , who was working as Vice President of Devices for the “MeeGo” – A mobile operating system that Intel and Nokia are jointly creating, has affected the complete rollout plan till the core. Being on the damage control mode, an Intel Executive – who oversees MeeGo development – insists the project is on track. However, he has turned down any possibility of launching MeeGo powered smartphones and tablets before first half of next year, as reported by Elizabeth Woyke.
Indeed it’s a disappointment for most of the Nokia’s fans that were anticipating and waiting for the launch from long. The biggest disappointment comes to Nokia who is already facing tough market competition from Android, iOS4 and RIM and was anticipating to reinvent itself under the leadership of new CEO with the launch of MeeGo late this year. Despite of having good consumer response on Nokia N8, industry analysts find nothing new in Nokia N8, besides high quality camera effect. Loaded with Symbian 3, newly release mobile OS from Nokia, N8 doesn’t offer anything new to its consumers from application stand point who are demanding much more from mobile technology these days.
However, Intel’s Vice president of Solution Mr. Dough Fisher feels that the plan is barely have any affect due to departure of Mr. Jaaksi. He backs his thoughts with the MeeGo OS V 1.0 which has been released in June. MeeGo OS v 1.0 is designed for notebook and the next version 1.1 is getting modified for touch based command and telephony designed for smartphones and tablets. He stands with his commitment to unveil MeeGo V1.1 later this month.
However, people will have to wait until next year to see and purchase MeeGo V1.1, perhaps at one of the tech industry’s largest trade show, said Fisher. He is also expecting that MeeGo tablets will be available in 2011. That clearly indicates the growing popularity of Tablets in the market and with the new OS is on its way, competition in Tablet may benefit consumers due to price war.
On the other hand, Intel is holding big plans with MeeGo. Company is trying to ship few MeeGo devices like IPTV and netbook this year itself. Following to this, In-built Car entertainment system powered by MeeGo will be the next release through a deal with the Chinese car maker HawTai. Eventually, Intel is also expecting to see MeeGo incorporated in places as diverse as digital signs, kiosks and ATMs.
In order to lure manufacturers, Intel has been stocking MeeGo applications in its app store, the AppUp Center. To have indirect interoperability company has released the tools for developers which would help them to port applications quickly from other formats , such as Apple’s iOS. Currently, through its developers program, Intel has already produced more than 1,000 Microsoft Windows-based applications.
Nokia is a sole handset manufacturer who has decides to take MeeGo into the market and with constant growing popularity of Android, it would be interesting to see how market reacts to such transformation.
