You know, the funny thing is that this might actually improve support for the Jolla phone. Jolla has, of course, been focussed on software development from the start; that's what the company was set up for, and that's where the majority of their expertise lies.

A separate corporation focussed on hardware would have the ability to do things like, gasp, release an Android-based phone with a TOH-compatible backside; something that might make them a lot of money (at the cost of potentially annoying Jolla fans). The ability to sell Jolla-compatible hardware to telecoms that are skittish about novel operating systems would, I think, be a huge boost.

Jolla already has a long-term plan on how to make their software business profitable. If this new company can figure out how to make Jolla-compatible hardware profitable (whether or not it even contains Jolla software), this really will be a win-win decision.