The Story of Nokia MeeGo

An anonymous reader writes "TaskuMuro, a Finnish tech news site, has anonymously interviewed various Nokia employees and pieced together an interesting timeline of the events which led to the abandonment of the Nokia MeeGo platform and to Nokia's current affiliation with Microsoft and Windows Phone. It appears the MeeGo project was rather disorganized from the get-go and fell victim to the company's internal tug-of-war, aimless management causing several UI redesigns and a none-too-wise reliance on Intel components which lacked some key features – namely, LTE support."

Re:Wow

[Sarten-X]

You must realize, Microsoft has a long tradition of maintaining an internal tug-of-war, led by aimless management, and causing several UI redesigns. They're the perfect choice to synergize with Nokia's corporate environment to leverage their assets for market innovation!

Re:Wow

[Kingkaid]

Nokia didn't have a choice to partner with anyone but Microsoft. If they stayed with Symbian they were dead. MeeGo was dead before being born. Blackberry would have never partnered with them. Apple would have never partnered with them. This leaves Microsoft and Google. If they choose Google they are now competing on the same platform against a much cheaper Korean and Chinese manufacturers and designers. I am sure they could have made a go of it, but the company would have shrunk and likely be in worse shape than they are now. Microsoft was desperate for a partner and champion, so it was a match made in heaven. Now this doesn't say they won't die, but given where they were it was the best move to make.

I need a new phone soon

[tantrum]

My N900 is almost 3 years old, and it is starting to show it's age. I really hope the combination mer/sailfish will turn out ok, as i haven't found anything able to replace my current N900 yet.

I'm going to miss Nokia if they go down for good :(

The best do not matter without focus

[SuperKendall]

You have to figure they're recruiting the best of the best, yet some of them manage epic F-ups.

Like the article said though, the teams were great what they were coming up with was great - but they lacked focus, and Nokia was working on multiple platforms at once.

You cannot do that when Google and Apple both ALSO have great teams, also working but all with a focus on one system. Nokia was fated to fall behind these other platforms without the focus on building out a single ecosystem at the same pace Apple and Google were.

It's really a shame, Nokia had an awesome starting position and smart people. But in the end I have to agree with Elop that they were too far behind and the Microsoft partnership was the only way to let them catch up and yet stay distinct in the market (which would have been an issue with Android for Nokia).

N9 is still my favorite phone to develop for

[CreamyG31337]

The phone itself is running x11 which is really great for porting apps to it. You get to use c++ and the great qt framework and extensions for pretty much everything, with the option of doing the UI in QML (a javascript based framework). You get to use deb packaging which you either know already or doesn't hurt to learn. If you use the qt creator sdk it does all the dirty work for you, but you can develop without it and just use the scratchbox environment instead if you prefer. Services run with upstart. The xterminal and related developer tools are already compiled and hosted in nokia's repositories, one click to install everything. The fcam camera api allows raw shooting and manual aperture and focus. Gnome tracker indexes your messages and music. The nolo bootloader can be set up to dual boot to another OS. I look forward to the new Sailfish OS promised by Jolla, I have faith the guys writing it are the ones behind some of the well designed N9 OS, and won't make it any worse. I tried windows phone 7 and you're not even allowed to run background services, let alone run your own code without paying a $99 fee.

Re:Wow

[rtfa-troll]

This is another repeat of the "Nokia wouldn't be able to make their phones special under Android so they would just compete on price". I'm still trying to work out how the shills can even say this "couldn't differentiate" bullshit with a straight face. Let's get this right:

with Android you have the source code and support for almost all available hardware; You are allowed to change the interface and a number of companies have already done son. Also you are allowed to add any applications you want of your own. This makes it impossible to differentiate your phone from other ones

With Windows; there is a small set of limited standard hardware; There is no support for proper cameras which is why PureView had to be crippled to work on it. The interface is controlled by Microsoft and is pretty much the same commodity system on all phones. The apps are forced to a secondary role by Microsoft controlled "hubs" which limit the possibilities for presenting data. All of this adds up to an operating system where Nokia has excellent opportunities to differentiate.

Based on their inability to differentiate using Android, Nokia were wise to go with Microsoft, where not only will they have to compete with the same much cheaper "Korean and Chinese manufacturers" (who seem to be actually getting MS backing to release ahead of Nokia) but they will also have to compete with Microsoft a company which sees its self as devices company [zdnet.com].

' Really; that's basically what you are saying. Astounding.