[Interest] Has anyone heard about Jolla?

[David Boosalis]

There was this article in the Wall Street Journal (Dated July 9)

By SVEN GRUNDBERG<http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=SVEN+GRUNDBERG&bylinesearch=true>

Finnish start-up Jolla Ltd. is in talks with hardware makers, aiming to
release a smartphone that runs on
Nokia<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=nok1v.he>Corp.'s
NOK1V.HE +4.17%<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=NOK1V.HE?mod=inlineTicker>largely
abandoned MeeGo operating system within the next six months.

"We are seriously making a smartphone here," Jolla Chief Executive Jussi
Hurmola said. "But we definitely can't do it alone."

Mr. Hurmola, a 12-year Nokia veteran who recently joined other former Nokia
employees at Jolla, said the start-up needed to raise about €10 million, or
roughly $12 million, from private investors to develop the smartphone. He
said Jolla would need to sell 50,000 to 100,000 of the phone to break even.

The company is in talks with partners such as manufacturers and chip-set
suppliers in an effort to get a phone on the market by year-end. Mr.
Hurmola said Jolla has signed deals with several partners.

"There seems to be a sizable number of MeeGo enthusiasts," he said in an
interview Monday, suggesting that such grass-roots support for the
operating system would help fuel demand. MeeGo's desirable features include
its security framework, a fast and fluid user interface and support for
full multitasking, he said.

MeeGo is Nokia's abandoned attempt at establishing an open-source operating
system for smartphones. It was unveiled in early 2010 in conjunction with
Intel <http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=intc>Corp.
INTC -0.96%<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=INTC?mod=inlineTicker>Open
source means third-party developers are free to study, change and
distribute the software.
Google<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=GOOG>Inc.'s
GOOG -2.38%<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=GOOG?mod=inlineTicker>popular
Android system also is open-source.

Helsinki-based Jolla had been working under the radar for about a year on
its plan for a MeeGo phone. The company's effort came to light over the
weekend when Jolla issued a news release.

The company remained tight-lipped about many details, such as the hardware
makers Jolla planned to work with. But Mr. Hurmola said the company
believed it was time to let the public know there would be a MeeGo phone
and that the software isn't dead.

Mr. Hurmola's effort is supported by his workforce's understanding of
MeeGo. About half of Jolla's 50 employees worked for Nokia. As a software
developer at Nokia, Mr. Hurmola worked at merging the company's Maemo
platform with Intel's Moblin platform to create MeeGo. Linux-based MeeGo
was designed as an alternative to Nokia's homegrown Symbian platform, which
was losing fans among users and Nokia engineers compared with rival
platforms.

When Nokia in February of last year decided to adopt
Microsoft<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=MSFT>Corp.'s
MSFT -1.85%<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=MSFT?mod=inlineTicker>Windows
Phone platform for smartphones, MeeGo development was abandoned.
MeeGo's assets were transferred to the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit
organization.

MeeGo was used in only one commercially introduced Nokia smartphone, the
N9. That phone received good reviews and generally was seen as Nokia's
first true competitor to
Apple<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=AAPL>Inc.'s
AAPL -1.30%<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=AAPL?mod=inlineTicker>iPhone
and devices running Android. But since Nokia no longer would support
MeeGo, the N9 didn't gain much traction.

"With all the respect to [Apple's mobile operating system] and Android, I'm
quite sure that the market is ready for something new," Mr. Hurmola said.
"As I see it, there are user segments that have been left unserved."

Mr. Hurmola said the industry can be penetrated by rivals who offer a solid
alternative to the dominant companies. "There is this view that certain
players dominate the market, but it's not really true," he said. "If you
look at any two-year span in the mobile industry you see that the type of
devices and the companies dominating the market change dramatically. If we
manage to hit the right notes, I'm sure market will change with us. We are
not aiming to become a niche player."

"The plan is to make MeeGo devices. But in the modern world, you can't just
make a device, you also need a platform and a full ecosystem including
applications and services," Mr. Hurmola said. "Our intent is to run the
full ecosystem."

*Write to * Sven Grundberg at sven.grundberg at dowjones.com


On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Lorn Potter <lorn.potter at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On 12/07/2012, at 4:40 AM, Jeff Tranter wrote:
>
> > On 12-07-11 01:46 PM, Joseph Crowell wrote:
> >> http://www.linkedin.com/company/jolla
> >
> > Yes. Not too many details yet. They don't appear to have a web site up
> > yet but they have the domain name jollamobile.com.
> >
> > You can find their press release at a number of sites such as this one:
> > http://nokiainnovation.com/2012/07/first-official-jolla-press-release
> >
> > Sounds like they will be using Qt and Mer and have been at this since
> > late last year, presumably when they knew that Nokia was dropping MeeGo.
>
> Actually, they got started _because_ Nokia dropped MeeGo, apparently using
> Nokia's bridge project.
> http://www.mobot.net/nokia-jolla-44481
>
> Interview with Jussi Hurmola:
>
>
> http://www.intomobile.com/2012/07/11/interview-jussi-hurmola-ceo-jollamobile-audio-and-text-available/
>
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Interest mailing list
> > Interest at qt-project.org
> > http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/interest
>
> _______________________________________________
> Interest mailing list
> Interest at qt-project.org
> http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/interest
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/attachments/20120711/75099abd/attachment.html>