Oh, the China Mobile fork of Android? One of two things will happen: It'll either diverge so much from Android it is no longer compatible, or it will change so little to stick with the Android trunk that it's effectively still under Google control.

No handset developer truly wants to create their own OS, as it's outside their scope. They also don't want to be dependent on an OS vendor who will probably compete with them, or seeks to push their brand via the OS.

MeeGo is very much neutral territory. Android is not, or it is not Android.

I'm still not sold on MeeGo being "neutral" as of yet.

But GM, BMW and quite a few others think so. So I guess there's more research for me to do.

I bet it isn't about neutrality. Big corporations look things in different perspective than *nix fanbois.

Meego probably just suits best to their use cases.

I think the Android is the last option that Nokia is considering. If they fail totally in the smart phone category, who knows? But it's not gonna happen soon.

They have Navteq, they do not want to use Google's maps and navigation. They invested loads on money when purchasing Navteq and have spent more money to developer services suitable for mobile phone use. They have their own app store (sigh...), they do not want to send that money to Android Market. They are trying to pull together a content provider portfolio, like Apple has done.

My guess is that Samsung will try to push their Bada as much as possible and try to get rid of MS and/or Android. Samsung also got stuck with Symbian, but they took a different route. There's no point in using three different platforms, and the future of Samsung seems to be similar to Nokia's - independent.

Bottom line, Android is an unrealistic option to Nokia. Big corporates do not want to use Android. It will used by small players and corporates that are seriously struggling. Too much money is going to other pockets when using Android.

There is no single platform that can span top-to-bottom hardware and all form factors (some of which stem from software requirements, though). That's a fact. Thus, *some* platform fragmentation is inevitable. We saw already one metaplatform that tried to address this - Java, and it failed miserably, as it was plagued by fragmentation to the level of the original problem it was trying to solve. Now, with Qt, Nokia has the chance to do it right without confining itself to a particular hardware/OS niche.

Bada as a platform is suitable for high-end and low-end phones. Naturally it's two different operating systems.

Bada is interesting in terms it is doing just the reverse MeeGo is doing, while MeeGo is trying to make a unified base that can be fitted with a Qt API (which is in turn universal across other OSes), Samsung is fitting OS-es (or, rather, kernels) INTO their API. Due to this, Nokia's approach has a bit more resource overhead, but on the other hand is easier to maintain and is more universal - as it can easily spread to new OSes (we already have - even if unofficial - Qt for webOS and Android, and a sterling but doomed iOS effort). Plus, as a bonus, it can be retrofitted with very little effort to tens, in not hundreds of millions of existing handsets. As for Bada, the 'low-end' part of the platform has not been released yet, so I can't comment just how well their unified approach works (contrary to Nokia, who have demonstrated Qt working nicely on midrange hardware of 2008).

EDIT: When I say 'not released yet' I mean the new range of low-end spectrum, not the existing, pre-Bada-is-now-cool phones. Also note that Bada is not really aiming for top-tier - the Galaxy stuff is Android, and even on the Bada pages, Bada is positioned more like the OS Samsung wants featurephone users to migrate to - very much the position of Symbian in the Nokia ecosystem. The problem with this is that I don't see the bridge between Android and Bada (the role of Qt in Symbian-MeeGo), and the popularity of Android makes it difficult for Sammy to push Bada into that segment without hurting itself at least on the short term.

It's true that Bada has been mostly mentioned with low-end phones and cheaper smart phones. I still don't see why they couldn't push Bada to high-end also after they've got their stuff together. I'm pretty sure they would like to. It's true that e.g. Android users that have invested money in the software will have hard time moving to Bada.

Currently the profits from high-end phones are ridiculous, it's not going to be like this forever. Content and services will become more important, and at this point hanging with Google is not that appealing anymore.

If MeeGo is not neutral then arguably the Linux kernel is not neutral. Currently there are only two heavy investors in it, but they can't unilaterally decide where things go (and certainly, can't bar other companies or individuals from joining.)

You bet. I'm sure they're raring to strike up their own deals for in-car GPS and other services, possibly selling the slots -to- Google.

Neutrality is a big thing when it comes to your use case. If it's all about creating a platform for you to sell services, then a platform like Android gives Google a leg up on that, in addition to riding your brand.

MeeGo, being controlled by the Linux Foundation, is owned by an entity with a vested interest only in your participation.

So if Nokia takes a sip from the MeeGo fountain, tailors it to one of their device (infuse it with proprietary hw drivers, proprietary UI and a set of proprietary base apps); how would one revert it back to 'open'?

Would it be a simple package removal/substitution?