Founder says Newkia branding will not be on its phones

Newkia's founder and interim CEO of mobile social media company Yuuzoo, Thomas Zillacus, told CNET Asia that the branding which will appear on a potential Android smartphone will not be Newkia, despite the hype the name had generated.

Zillacus also said that he already has ideas for the new name but have no announcements to make at this time.

He also added that he will not be the CEO of Newkia, though he already has someone in mind, someone whose "name you have all heard of before."

Other details revealed include the fact that there were already plenty of job applications since the story broke last week from all around the globe. Zillacus said that there were some current Nokia employees who wanted to come on board as they didn't want to work for Microsoft.

A mayor in a Finnish city has also offered Zillacus some incentive to base the company there in the form of free office space, but the Newkia founder seems committed to having the company based in Singapore, having lived in the country for the last 27 years.

When asked if Newkia would be approaching Jolla, makers of the MeeGo-based Sailfish OS, Zillacus played that option down and said he would prefer jumping on the world's leading mobile platform Android as opposed to one with a poor app ecosystem like Windows Phone 8.

Zillacus also admitted to us that he had not tried out Windows Phone 8, though he has heard plenty of good things about the Lumia range of devices.

Lastly, the Newkia founder showed us a prototype MyOrigo handset, made ten years ago by former Nokia engineers, which sported a touchscreen, a UI resembling the old Nokia Symbian handsets and the ability to rotate the orientation of the screen based on the phone's position.

He mentioned that the Nokia management had looked at the handset and turned it down , saying that they thought no one would want a screen that would have plenty of fingerprint smudges.

Pics here.