Tuesday, July 06, 2010
MeeGo? It could actually make it
In my last post, where I was commenting about Microsoft and their sequence of failures on mobile, I wrote:
if you want other companies to manufacture devices with your OS (the Windows mobile vs. the Apple model) today you need:Someone in the comments asked me: "what about MeeGo?"
- to charge zero dollars for your OS
- to make your OS open source and allow your ODMs some freedom to differentiate
- to have a cool OS
Well, if you look at the list above, MeeGo passes #1 and #2 right away.
I have installed MeeGo on a laptop and the OS is really cool (including the pre-installed option to sync with Funambol just above Google ;-) Therefore, they pass #3 as well.
Does it mean they are going to make it?
There is more to an OS to be successful. You need device manufacturers, developers and users. You need all of them to be there. Users bring developers, developers bring users, device manufacturers come if there is traction: if they know there are developers and there will be users.
Who brings the device manufacturers? Intel. They are pushing MeeGo like crazy.
Who brings the users? Nokia. They have a brand in mobile that is not going to disappear that fast (despite what people say). If Nokia has a sexy phone with MeeGo, users will buy it.
Who brings the developers? The Linux Foundation. They are a trusted party in open source. The fact MeeGo is the equivalent of the root of Linux is a big factor.
If you consider all this, you can see a positive spiral developing. With device manufacturers launching MeeGo products because of Intel. With users jumping in because of Nokia. And developers joining in, seeing the traction plus the Linux Foundation stamp.
Yep, I think MeeGo can actually make it.
Posted by Fabrizio Capobianco at 19:01
7 Comments:
Russ said...
I'm actually pretty optimistic about MeeGo (regardless of whether I work for Nokia or not). I've used Maemo since way back, and like what I see so far with both the Netbook and videos of the handset GUI. Did you see the online documentation for the mobile UX? Not bad - they're obviously thinking stuff through, which makes me happy.
But the clock is ticking. There's a finite window of time available before competing platforms are too well established to challenge them. I'm thinking of Android specifically. Sadly, just because a technology is more "open" or generally nicer, doesn't mean it's going to attract support, regardless of how nice it is. The tech industry is littered with bodies of inferior products that succeeded despite having more capable alternatives.
-Russ
Comment Posted at 21:22
Hardeep Singh said...
I ticked Android off my desired smartphone OS list the day I found out it can only run apps written in Java. If I wanted to run Java I'll buy a cheap S40.
Comment Posted at 22:57
Life is so much more complex than these three rules....
Being cool is not enough today. An OS has to be __cooler__ than iOS and Android to make an impact. Note sure MeeGo will make it there.
The cold reality is that operators come before users. Without operators actively pushing and financing devices, MeeGo does not have a standing chance. Do we see operators adding another OS to the already confusing mix? This is the last thing they need today.
Developers are a finite resource, some say a scarce resource today. What MeeGo has to offer to make developers abandon iPhone and Android and get into something new?
How about cost? How about diversity of chipset vendor support? Shall I continue?
Comment Posted at 23:36
Praveen said...
I'd like to comment on this one line
"If Nokia has a sexy phone with MeeGo, users will buy it."
Yes, users will buy it.
My phone is 3 years old and I keep thinking, who will buy a Nokia phone with Symbian OS on it, it's so not polished. Yet, I find all my friends with a Nokia running symbian.
If people don't mind buying a phone with symbian OS, Meego is only adding value and not taking away anything.
I just hope meego comes on with awesome hardware.
Comment Posted at 04:22
heffer said...
MeeGo is still somewhat in a learning process of how to do things "The Open Source Way" (http://theopensourceway.org/ also see http://www.theopensourceway.org/book/The_Open_Source_Way-How_to_tell_if_a_FLOSS_project_is_doomed_to_FAIL.html)
Also I hope Nokia is strong enough to make phones that are open enough for you to really actually build your own image and load it to your phone. But I'm afraid they will rely on proprietary stuff for economic reasons.
Comment Posted at 04:36
Khertan said...
"Developers are a finite resource, some say a scarce resource today. What MeeGo has to offer to make developers abandon iPhone and Android and get into something new?"
Because there is Python ! :)
Comment Posted at 05:22
Nordin said...
It's not only MeeGo what's important, also the hardware design, usability and the apps. MeeGo is just a platform.
For example, I was about to get myself a N900 Maemo, but after comparing it with the HTC Android Desire I finally chose the HTC Desire. If you look at the specs, one of the things played a role for my decision was the screen. Whatever the technology is behind, the amoled screen and the capacitive touch layer was great. You can't tell this about the N900. So this decision was based on the hardware (while I'm a Linux enthousiast).
Furhtermore, I also know some people who has an Android phone, so some apps like MessageNow can be used to communicate with each other, just like the ping among the blackberry users. With the Android Market there's a bunch of apps to choose from. So in this case the availability of free apps is also very important.
One of the important apps like Facebook (or Hyves in the Netherlands), Twitter, Youtube should be strongly supported. Since mobile internet is quite common these days, there's also a serious growth for social network.
Simple non-geek users need to easily navigate through the menu. Don't add to many settings and configs, most of the people don't like that. The tiny group that likes the tweaking, is not the group you can earn money from (from the business point of view).
Finally the marketing plays an important role, don't do the strategy like Google's Nexus One, that was a big failure. It needs to get popularity by commercials etc...
There will be always developers when a device gain in popularity and available api to create apps, that's not something to worry about.
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