Nokia's new MeeGo-based N9 is set up for failure
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
With both Apple and Google, you have some sense of where it's going to go (more of the same, just better). With Nokia, who can reliably predict where the platform's going to go in a year or so? Or even which one?
Still, N9 gives me a glimmer of hope. One can hope, right?
Elop seems determined to walk in Adam Osbourne's footsteps:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
Given his clear commitment to WP7 at all costs, what would motivate anyone to buy an N9, much less develop for its "platform?"
The two top OS players in the market, Google and Apple, each have exactly one platform they push (Android and iOS respectively). If neither of those titans thinks it's prudent to support two entirely different platforms, how am I to reconcile myself with the idea that Nokia can successfully attack the market on two separate fronts?
Ouch.
If I were the management, I would be hostile to it and do whatever I could to bury it. We know from history that Nokia can bury their own phones, but I have no idea if they can do it on purpose:)
Of course, my hope as a geeky N900 owner is that the N9 catches on, Nokia pivots to releasing Meego/Harmattan phones along with W7 phones, and starts putting money into Meego again until it's ready for primetime. I don't think it's too likely, though, without a leadership change.
Rick Belluzzo's footsteps are a better comparison: (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Belluzzo for more); He killed HP's processor business (giving it to Intel for free), then destroyed SGI (killing MIPS and IRIX in the process).
The main beneficiary in all three cases (Nokia, SGI, HP) is actually Microsoft - where Belluzzo got a job later, and I'm sure Elop will go back to later to collect his reward -- after all, he sold Nokia to MS for $1B, way below market price.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell#Beyond_NetWare
Bought Unix Systems Laboratories, Wordperfect, Quattro Pro, and DR DOS, and squandered them, accelerating Microsoft's dominance of PC operating systems and office software.
Making the switch to WP7 might or might not have been a good decision for Nokia, but it was a decision to largely part ways with that developer base and jointly gamble with Microsoft that they could build a credible alternative developer base to iOS and Android.
It's funny to be writing this; four years ago, I would have been frankly really surprised to think that Nokia developers could become somewhat irrelevant so quickly.
I'm not trying to worship Apple - I expect Android, at least to compete - but I don't see anything to indicate that the N9 is remotely competitive.
Really Ars? Really? Sure, they're probably right there is a difference, but have they actually measured it and shown it's significant enough to warrant statements like this?
Is Android, with JIT-enabled Dalvik, significantly more "resource intensive" than comparable functionality on MeeGo? Perhaps I missed that article.
WP currently requires all third-party apps in the marketplace to be entirely .NET/CLR-based. There are a lot of hints that this will eventually change, possibly at the same time they port to a Windows NT kernel, also hinted to be in the works. This might explain the confusion over Qt, if they plan to eventually port it but can't say so without revealing Microsoft's roadmap.
This is somewhat analogous to Android (which is open source) and HTC's Sense UI on top of it (which is specific to HTC). Google's Android pages don't neccessarily link to HTC' products.
EDIT: I realized you were probably talking not about the MeeGo platform but about the reference handset user interface. I don't know who has been developing that. Nokia announced their intention to differentiate with their own proprietary UX a while back as I recall. The only project I've heard of that uses the reference handset UX is the Community Edition of MeeGo for the Nokia N900.