Nokia and Intel merge software platform to form MeeGo

 

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Posted on 16 Feb 2010 at 13:43

MWC 2010: Nokia and Intel have announced that their respective Maemo and Moblin operating systems to create MeeGo, a Linux-based software platform supporting multiple hardware architectures and device types, including mobile phones, netbooks, tablets, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.

The two firms say that MeeGo will "accelerate industry innovation and time to market for a wealth of new internet-based applications and services and exciting user experiences."

"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 President and CEO 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 toward providing a terrific experience across a variety of devices and gaining cross-industry support."

MeeGo blends the best of Maemo and Moblin to create an open platform for multiple hardware architectures, building on Moblin's core and its support for a wide range of device types with the momentum of Maemo and its broadly adopted Qt application and user-interface development framework.

Nokia said that Symbian will continue to be its main focus for smartphones, with MeeGo-based devices fitting into the mobile computing category. Applications developed for one can be deployed to the other with a minimal effort, claimed the Finnish mobile phone maker.

That's undoubtedly a daunting task and so far both companies have spent a lot of time talking about their efforts, but we haven't seen either gain a lot of traction yet. Hopefully that's not too far away though as devices based on MeeGo are expected later this year.

Neither firm has released any screenshots of the OS though, so it remains to be seen how MeeGo's potential stacks up in reality. We'll bring you some more thoughts on this as soon as we can get our mitts on a MeeGo-equipped device.

Author: Tim Smalley in Barcelona