Thread: Everyone else has caught up and Nokia has been left behind
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Laughing Man is offline Laughing Man
2010-04-24 , 11:19
Posts: 4,556 | Thanked: 1,624 times | Joined on Dec 2007
#305
Originally Posted by ysss View Post
For sure

Anyway, that's a numbers game. As long as they think they can recoup the marketing costs, why shouldn't anyone in the business do the same?



To put things in perspective, I think for a company the size of Nokia, the investments in OS is miniscule. Look at what Palm has done with their much limited resources (compared to Nokia or Apple). Granted their execution is failing flat on its face, I think Palm has designed and implemented the WebOS quite well.

What's stopping Nokia to license Android anyway?
They can even spin off a different company to run it if they want to keep it off from 'tainting' their brands.
See also: Vertu
I'm not sure if you could say miniscue investment without clarifying it (time, money, etc..). For example to support an OS you have to be actively fixing it (the more developers the better). You have to be actively promoting the OS as well (Apple, Android). You have to make connections with developers and other companies to interest them in your platform. And I think probably to the heads of Nokia, they think that given Maemo and Symbian, one which has the proven userbase (Symbian) that they should invest more of their time into Symbian rather than Maemo.

Originally Posted by ysss View Post
Yeah but I can't help to wonder...

What if the N900 comes in two flavors?

Or maybe defaults with Android for the 'masses' and optionally you can download and install maemo and dual boot it.

I'm betting that would set fire to the N900. Think of how much coverage (mindshare) it would garner as it rides the Android news wave. How all the new android handsets will be compared with the N900, etc. Maemo would become a trojan OSS payload within a popular handset.
That would be wonderful (I'm always up for choice ).

As for why they don't.. I don't know. I don't even think there is a stringent licensing requirement from Google (unlike Microsoft's Windows 7 Phone series). Unless you have to pay Google to use their app store? Or maybe they're just afraid they will wind up as an Android hardware maker.

Originally Posted by wmarone View Post
I suppose if you -wanted- Android, that'd be great. Including Maemo et. al. at that point would be a waste of space, since you'd effectively be conceding to Android.

Personally, I'd consider that a loss.
Maybe if you consider Maemo as a smartphone OS (which I think it makes for a terrible one). But I think Maemo could supplement Android by providing the mobile computer side of things.

For example, need your device in smartphone mode (e.g. your not doing anything that needs the mobile computer aspect) then just use Android. Then boot into Maemo when you need to edit a document, give a presentation, or whatever the heck you do (or not do necessarily since my use case is probably not prevelant). And you still retain phone call functionality in case someone calls you. Of course the boot switching has to be fast.
__________________
Originally Posted by ysss View Post
They're maemo and MeeGo...

"Meamo!" sounds like what Zorro would say to catherine zeta jones... after she slaps him for looking at her dirtily...
Last edited by Laughing Man; 2010-04-24 at 11:21.