Intel’s Chief Executive Paul Otellini said Nokia would find it hard to differentiate using the Windows platform: “It would have been less hard on Android, on MeeGo he could have done it.”
“We will find another partner. The carriers still want a third ecosystem and the carriers want an open ecosystem, and that’s the thing that drives our motivation,” he said. MeeGo was created last year by the merger of two Linux-based platforms; Nokia’s Maemo and and Intel’s Moblin. MeeGo runs on both ARM and Intel processors.
The MeeGo tablet demo looks great, but will there be enough apps, asks C/Net. Intel’s MWC press release, claims that MeeGo has made “great strides” since the OS’ announcement a year ago, and “gained strong industry momentum with software vendors, system integrators and operators, as well as OEMs and products shipping today in multiple form factors, including netbooks, tablet, set-top boxes and in-vehicle infotainment systems in cars.”
Meanwhile Otellini said during a keynote at Mobile World Congress that a number of smartphone models would be launched this year using the firm’s upcoming Atom processor, dubbed Medfield. ARM currently holds close to 90% of the mobile market, so convincing hardware manufacturers to embrace Medfield won’t be easy. Medfield runs MeeGo, of course.
Otellini said in Barcelona that open systems had the edge over closed systems: “Some closed models will certainly survive, because you can optimize the experience, but in general, if you harness the ability of all the engineers in the world and the developers in the world, open wins.
Otellini said that Nokia dropped the MeeGo operating system after Microsoft offered “incredible” amounts of money,” reports Reuters.
Nokia’s boss Stephen Elop said on Sunday that Microsoft essentially won a bidding war against Google to supply software to the world’s largest handset maker worth “billions”.
Later in the week, however, it appears like the “billions” figure is soft costs, R&D savings and marketing around Windows’ phone.
Nokia Plan B was a hoax. The person behind the “Nokia Plan B” shareholder revolt turned out to be just one very bored engineer who likes his iPhone.”
It was grounded in real shareholder concerns about the Microsoft-Nokia partnership, however. Nokia stock has plummeted 25 percent since Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the partnership Friday.
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday that he had held extensive talks to try to woo Nokia.
