Nokia may have declared its love for Microsoft and Windows 7 but that doesn’t mean that they have put all their eggs in one basket. The hype of MWC about Nokia ditching MeeGo for Windows 7 was a tad over dramatic. It seems that the Finnish company is increasing salaries and bonuses to developers and engineers working on MeeGo. Nokia has commit to releasing did just release the first MeeGo handset, the N950, and they aren’t planning on ditching a product that it is planning on bringing to market.
Clearly Nokia can’t go Android or iOS, so they have to put their money on what will be the number 3 operating system. Clearly they are banking on Windows Phone 7, and really besides MeeGo its pretty much their only option. Who is looking to take that number 3 position behind Android and Apple? RIM and WebOS have thrown their hat in the ring, but a clear 3rd place is still TBA.
MeeGo is an open-source platform that can power handsets, but also tablets or netbooks, and that may be why Nokia isn’t letting go of MeeGo just yet. MeeGo has long-term potential, the key word being potential. The ability to develop once and scale to multiple hardware platforms still has many developer wipping the drool off their chins. Its actually a very smart move on Nokia’s part, they can’t bank on MeeGo for year or two, at least. So in the mean time it makes sense to run with an operating system that is market ready.
The other factor that Nokia has to keep in mind is what is going to happen to the fiercely loyal Meamo developers that have stuck it out with the Finnish company through thick and thin? Surprisingly what I learned at MWC and afterwards is that these Meamo devs are looking to MeeGo. This underdog might just be the second chance that Nokia is looking for. If they can execute this in a timely fashion and learn from all of the mis steps that occurred with Symbian, they might have a shot. Maybe Nokia has learned their lesson and the past year has actually made them wiser.
I had a chance to site down the Peter Biddle Product Manager of Intel’s AppUp! who has just released an App Store for MeeGo. He outlines why MeeGo has the potential to come in third in the mobile operating system race. Shunned or Not, MeeGo hopes to stand on its own and Peter takes a stand on why it can.
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