Nokia has been developing Meltemi for their low to mid range phones as part of their overall SmartPhone / Feature Phone strategy. MicroSoft Windows Phone for the Lumia high end range (that replaced MeeGo) and then Meltemi for their lower spec’ed Feature Phones that could run a light Linux based OS.
Well now it appears that Meltemi project is among the R&D projects that has been sacked which has been confirmed by insiders to AllThingsD.
CEO Stephen Elop declined to confirm if the company was going forward with Meltemi at a recent Q&A Session. It seems that Nokia will continue to use S40 for its low-cost devices in its mission to bring “Apps to the next Billion“.
There was hope that Meltemi could be the new Linux step child for Nokia. Open Source enthusiasts found a ray of hope for Nokia Deep (Deep) down in their hearts but it is not to be !
Why are we surprised, Nokia never officially announced that Meltemi existed but we all knew it did, but then didn’t them sacking everyone MeeGo related hold the clue ? More importantly wasn’t the real clue in them also sacking everyone in the Maemo division !
Now the news is that another 10,000 jobs are to go and my heart truly goes out to the everyday Nokia employees out there that don’t know what their future job prospects hold. Feels like the MeeGo cullings all over again.
Can Nokia Make it with Windows ? Well MicroSoft now making their own tablet and not even informing their closest hardware alies does not boed well for Nokia I feel.
Time will tell, as it always does ….
Source SlashGear
