The FINANCIAL — Nokia Corp. and Intel Corp. on Monday announced the merger of their Linux operating systems to create a new mobile platform called Meego, which will be rolled out on Media phones, Netbooks, Pocketables/Handhelds, In-car entertainment systems as well as Connected TVs.
This is the next step in the cooperation of Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, and Intel, the No. 1 chip maker, and represents their attempt at reducing the proliferation of operating systems that makes the design of new phones and the writing of application a longer and more costly process, according to Market Watch.
Meego, which will be released in the second quarter and hosted by the Linux foundation, will merge Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo and feature Qt, a popular program that lets developers write an application only once for a range of various devices, the same source reports. The announcement was made on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress, the wireless telecoms industry's largest annual gathering, held in Barcelona.
The first version of MeeGo will be available in the second half of 2010, and Nokia promises a product that builds on the Nokia N900 to begin with. By using the Qt framework, MeeGo will ensure that third-party developers will be available to reach the wide range of product types mentioned above, infosyncworld.com informs.
In 2009, Nokia and Intel announced a partnership for the co-development of mobile solutions. MeeGo is the first product of this partnership, Fin 24 reports. "Our vision for seamlessly communicating between computing devices from the home, auto, office or your pocket is taking a big step forward today with the introduction of MeeGo," said Intel CEO and president Paul Otellini.
"This is a foundational step in our evolving relationship with Nokia. The merging of these two important assets into an open source platform is critical towards providing a terrific experience across a variety of devices." said executive vice-president of Nokia, Kai Öistämö: "We believe this offers something really compelling for consumers, operators, developers, hardware manufacturers and software vendors." He added that MeeGo was designed for pervasive internet connectivity so that users could be connected, no matter where they are. "We are developing a platform that looks beyond today's smartphones and mobile computers," he said, according to Fin 24.
Market Watch reports that Nokia said the launch of Meego doesn't mean it will give up on Symbian, the operating system powered its smart phones but has come under fire in the past two years for not revamping itself fast enough, leading to a dreary user interface and little developer enthusiasm for writing applications on that platform.
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