Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

[Press Release]

Jolla Ltd and D.Phone sign product Sales Agreement.

Jolla Ltd. and China’s Largest Smartphone Retail Chain D.Phone Sign Product Sales Agreement

Jolla Ltd., a rising Finnish smartphone product company, has signed a Sales and Distribution agreement with D.Phone Group, the largest mobile phones retail chain in China. Together the companies have a shared target to reach significant sales volumes in China’s 150 million smartphone market. The agreement is such that D.Phone will start sales and distribution of Jolla smartphones in China, utilising D.Phone’s vast network of over 2000 retail stores to reach the Chinese consumers.

Mr. Donghai Liu, Founder and CEO of D.Phone Group: "We see great potential for Jolla as a new player in the Chinese smartphone market with Jolla’s fresh and unique user experience. Together with Jolla our aim is to reach significant sales volumes."

Dr. Antti Saarnio, Chairman of Jolla Ltd.: "China has the largest and most rapidly expanding smartphone market in the world. This agreement with D.Phone is a major step in Jolla’s journey towards becoming a significant player in the global smartphone market"

Jolla Ltd. is an independent Finland based smartphone product company that will
reveal its first product later this year. Jolla was founded in 2011 by a team of former Nokia mobile industry professionals. The company is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland and has an R&D office in Tampere, Finland.

D.Phone is China’s largest chain retailer of mobile phones and accessories with extensive nationwide retail coverage of over 2,000 outlets across the country. D.Phone is a strategic partner with China Mobile, China Telecom and China
Unicom.


Sincerely,


Mr. Donghai Liu Dr. Antti Saarnio
Founder and CEO Chairman of the Board
D.Phone Group Jolla Ltd.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

I'd rather be interested in news about their development and OS or at least about hardware that they target. News about deals with Chinese distributors while marginally interesting, affect only those from China ;) But good anyway, more exposure for Jolla is needed. They do plan to sell their products world wide too, right?

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

I would say at this points it's more important to secure your supporters. We know they can deliver on software side Meamo is a great example these guys are good, but sales wise they need as many partners as they can!!!

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Breaking news from Finland:

http://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/jo...anssa/a2137188

Hard first blow for Jolla: sales and distribution agreement with China's largest mobile phone chain

Jolla, which is coming to the market with MeeGo phones, has made ​​a sales and distribution agreement with Chinas largest retail chain of smartphones D.Phone Group.

Companies' shared goal is to reach "significant volume of sales," 150 million smartphones on the market in China alone.

D.Phone Group has more than 2,000 retail stores throughout China. It is also a strategic partner of China Mobile , China Telecom and China Unicom .

"Jolla is a new player in the Chinese smartphone market, which offers a fresh and unique user experience. In Jolla we see great potential. Our goal is to reach significant volume of sales", D.Phone Group's founder and CEO of Donghai Liu says.

"China has the world's largest and fastest-growing smartphone market. Contract with D. Phone is a very big step in a major way to start Jolla to became a big player in the global smartphone market," said Chairman of the Board Jolla Antti Saarnio.

E: Oh, missed the whole last page :) Well, I'll still leave this translation here

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Can't entirely agree with this. Getting a strong start in the Chinese market through a large distributor will give Jolla the stability of sales (and revenue) it needs to better position itself from a global perspective.

It may also provide Jolla with an opportunity to license or dostribute to other handset makers in the same region should the product prove successful.

Congrats to the team I say!

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Indeed. And if they suceed, it's a bit of an virtual finger to Nokia too, because Nokia switched its focus from Asia (and left China Mobile in the cold when it abandoned MeeGo) to the cesspool that is the (way smaller) US market.

A virtual finger because they as a newcomer (newcomer as in the company, not as in their employees) can then take the market there quite substantially, with an OS that Nokia dumped, whileas Nokia's arrogant, clueless management phucked up huge time trying to charm US buyers with an substitute OS almost nobody wants and they have no control over anyway.


I can't keep waiting to see how this round plays out! :D

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

I didn't say that there is something wrong with that deal. I said that's not what's interesting to hear as some news from them.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

...and we just did say it is entirely interesting for us to also hear such news, because they give us a bigger picture.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

You could try to do what Id Software is doing and making delayed release of the source code for closed parts like 'special sauce'. It would be better than nothing.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

I hope not. Like its partner in crime, MS, all their mobile initiatives and partnerships are abject failures.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Good news regarding Asia. But I still want to know who is funding the project. Anyone found any solid leads on that?

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

<begin rant>
..I don't think the situation is at all the same that it was 10 years back. The N9 for example has 1 GHz processor, 1 Gb ram and 64 Gb of storage, more than enough for basic PC tasks. So the distiction between different devices is bluring, why have a separate PC if you can get more than good enough HW inside the volume of a device that can go in to your pocket?

Things are changing. I'm sorry to say this, but to be honest I think in general this kind of mentality, is the main reason for the state nokia is in right now... I don't know what's up with the management in general here in finland, but many of the guys in power here really need first to take a look at the mirror, and then start to adopt new and open models for the way things are done.. minimize the unnecessary bloat = pyrocracy and allow people who know how to do stuff make stuff (like Esko Aho was there, wtf?). Guess when your boat gets big, the paper moving, idea echoing rats get in (though Esko might really be an okay economy guy). If there is no open discussion and visibility through inside the company there'll be people who exploit the really valuable workers only to polish their shield or throw stics in your wheels, just to keep their personal pedestal. So encouracing openness reduces dublicate effort and allows talented people to see what's going on and use their talent, so it really is a worthy model of doing stuff. All though I have no experience inside nokia, but I've banged my head against other peoples pedestals in other workplaces quite a lot already and doubt that nokia had that much of a different work culture (allthough better, for sure)... But the management has to encourage openess and take care that people who aren't guarding their territory don't get punished for not doing so.

Luckily lot of the new blood is more open minded work wise, and if people here are to produce cool new stuff it's about time to give room and appreciation for young folks and freaking listen what they say, I suspect there's a lot of talent here getting wasted because of stupid unnecessary ****.

And yes I know, I'm just barking.. but there really should be this "Who Gives A **** What Your Girlfriends Doing, What Your Hair Look like Or How Big Your Penis is....Let's Do Some Diving!" ** kind of mentality. :D But I know people suck..

but I guess Jolla guys have good probability of pulling it off, if they aren't aming to make gazillion euros in a week but instead have long term plans and build other income streams to their product than the selling of the device :) And why woudn't they, bet they have learned a thing or two inside nokia already.

** Phil Anselmo
<end rant>

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

What a perfect word to describe current Nokia management!

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Yes yes yes, let the european, US operators see this to make them also sign!

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

color me a skeptic, but until they release an actual product I am inclined to ignore any press releases.

Past events have proven the cynics all correct and exposed believers as hopeless romantics; I cant shake off the feeling this will end the same way.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

We will have to build a new Internet now.

Aparaatti just won the old one.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Unfortunately, the new Nokia can't change name easily.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

i love this on the title bar...

"Leading manufacturer of continuous type - waste plastic..."
did someone say Lumia? now that's what i call honest marketing!

you sure Nokia haven't already moved to this domain?

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

EDIT: english version available

Perhaps best information about Jolla so far in this interview:

http://www.ossimantylahti.com/2012/0...ging-director/

(original finnish one
http://blogit.tietokone.fi/ossi/2012...jussi-hurmola/)


Meego veterans who departed from Nokia announced their new company in July. This came as a surprise and I got rather interested. Therefore I interviewed CEO of the company for my Tietokone magazine blog. This is English version of the story.

Managing Director Jussi Hurmola, why did Jolla came out just now?

- Jolla has been operating since the end part of last year. Announcement as of now focuses on publicing the fact that we are creating smart phones and their ecosystem. We are now launching our brand and growing it. This way we will facilitate the way forward. At this point we are able to publish some of our partners. Partners are important – without them we can’t operate.

On this morning Jolla announced partnership to sell phones in China. Resellers are according to Helsingin Sanomat and Talouselämä D.Phone Group, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom. According to Hurmola there has been some interest in Finland, but he can’t reveal details. He however hints that as a Finnish company it would be a miracle if the company won’t be selling their products also in Finland and in Europe. However he can’t reveal Jolla’s ODM and business vendors as they are related to product specifications.

What is the logic of Jolla’s business? Will the concept be sold to some already existing operator who has production chain and sales network already in place, or are you building those by yourself?

- Jolla aims for creating smart phones and our business is to sell those. We are not directly competing with established players but instead want to create an alternative. Our niche is to produce something new to the market.

What kind of consumer segment are you after? Is the coming phone intended only for Linux geeks?

- Our first phone is coming up later this year. And because in this market it is very difficult to operate as a small company we intend to become a serious player.
- The phone will be a smart phone for mass market. It will not be a tech phone intended for Linux hackers. Consumers are not able to hack kernel or flash new software for the device.

- We are however planning on creating a development version of the phone for open source community, those interested in Linux and open systems and for partners.

What is your financial background? What kind of revenue are you after? How about profitability?

- At this moment Jolla is a small company who aims to become as a significant player in the market. We aim to increase our revenue and profitability gradually. And as we intend to manufacture the devices by ourselves, our need for capital and funding is greater than in a software company.
- We have had discussions with investors and it has become quite clear that it is very difficult to operate as a small company. Therefore we have big plans for growth.

Hurmola tells that their first venture capital round funding is arranged, but he won’t reveal plans for revenue and profitability until the product is published and market reactions for that can be observed.
It took Nokia several years to create the first Meego phone N9 and finally it was actually a half-meego Maemo. How on earth are you planning on creating a real Meego phone so quickly? Why did it take so long with Nokia?
The question amuses Hurmola.

- We used to be the people who created Meego at Nokia and know all too well what went wrong with the process. At Jolla we are concentrating on doing just one thing and rely heavily on partners.
- Nokia published its last Meego update (1.0.1.1.2) a couple of weeks ago. Open Source community is involved and has been continuing the work with Mer and Maemo distributions. A lot of work has been done and community has stuck together.

What is the situation with Meego’s rights? Only part of Meego code is open source. Can you really make Meego based phones or do you have to re-implement something by yourself? Did Nokia sell you some parts of the code?

- Jolla’s software stack is quite similar to all other smart phone manufacturers. Most of our code is open source (Meego, Qt and ophono). In order to make a phone one however needs a number of foundation technologies like chipset, GSM, UMTS and UI codes. We have licenced these from markets in similar manner to other smart phone makers.
- What sets Jolla’s phone apart from other makers is our user experience. And that is done by us.

Hurmiola answers my question about Nokia’s legacy code base in a bit cryptic way.

- We have licenced certain assets, but I can’t go into details on them and their sources.

What does Open Source mean for you?

- Almost everybody at Jolla has open source background either in software or in hardware. Linux is an established and leading technology. For example Android is based on Linux.

- Jolla’s foundation is on rpm based Mer Linux distribution. Qt is heavily involved and we think Qt is the best platform for creating good user experience. It enables us to implement good user interface quickly.
- It is already possible to create a smartphone almost fully as an open source. For example Phone Stack enables creation of cell connections and making calls.
- Jolla intends to donate as much of its code back to the open source community and this way develop the ecosystem. We do not want to own the ecosystem but lead it.

Are you not afraid on what happened with Open Moko?

- It is true that we have not heard too much from Open Moko for quite some time. But one has to remember that Jolla’s main goal is not to create an open source phone. We aim to create a competitive smart phone who almost everybody would want for himself. Open Source is just an element that enables creating such a device.
- We are not afraid of Open Moko’s fate. Jolla’s team is the best in business and the ecosystem needs several players anyway.

In YLE’s Päivän kasvo show you talked about enabling /facilitating. This is Nokia-speak. What do you really mean by that?

- In the market there are several players who are offering internet packet services. They are having hard time with Android and iOS. In addition some resellers, developers and operators are looking for alternatives for dominating ecosystems and want to create something new.
- In our opinion consumers also want to experience something new with their devices’ user interface. Thus enabling this does not mean just creating components but to actually create a ready product from start to end.
- Facilitating refers to creation of a modern smart phone that is based on independent and open platform.

Can you tell us anything on the upcoming device? Will there be a physical keyboard and what SoC will you be using?

- Sorry, can’t help you – yet. When the time comes to announcing the device, we will announce it. Until then information provided is rather limited. For example I can’t tell you anything about possible partnership with Intel.
- Details about schedule are neither available. I can only tell that the device announcement (telling that this-and-this device is coming) will be made in this year. But I can’t promise that the device will hit Christmas market. We are careful on purpose.

You mentioned that Jolla’s phone provides unique user experience. What will you do better than iOS, Windows Phone and Android? Or what do you think are their biggest falls?

- Jolla aims to create something fresh compared to iOS and Android. We want to bring in the parts of Meego that were liked: native multitasking, application integration and data integration. I am using N9 myself for all my mobile work tasks and I enjoy the fact that all applications are always open.
- We want to get rid of the user flow where users are starting and shutting down applications. Also the user interface must be customizable.

Doesn’t Windows Phone already work like this?

- Windows Phone multitasking is very limited. Only certain applications can be running in the background. For example your own applications can only be found from a long list. We want user experience to be customizable.
- Multitasking can be a challenge when it comes to battery usage. But by tweaking parameters this is not an overwhelming problem. We at Jolla have been working and studying these challenges for ten years so we are confident that we will find solution for this. We believe that with suitable parameter specifications we are able to provide sufficient resources for applications so that they can access their data and required network connections without constantly communicating with WLAN, cell phone networks and updating the screen.

Where does one get applications for Jolla’s phone?

- It is clear that Jolla’s phone needs 3rd party support, applications and ecosystem. We have now published our Qt/QML story but this is not enough. We are all the time building our ecosystem and we will also create a software store where consumers can buy applications for their phone.
- When the smart phone hits the market, it must absolutely have large number of applications available. When we will publish the phone, we will also tell more about the availability of applications.

How about Angry Birds?

- Angry Birds is already available for previous Meego devices.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

OK, the phone will be targeted to mass market and you can't stab the kernel or flash your own software. However, they intend to make a developer version available and in this dev version you can make these things. What does this mean in practise? Is the dev phone same as consumerphone with some sort of open mode or even a separate model? Who can purchase dev model?

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

I understand what is says in this and in another interview that there won't be separate hardware. The same hardware with consumer and developer OS/software versions. No idea how one will be able to obe with dev version.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Edited :D Tested something stupid :D

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

I hope not.

Because I would like very much that this small upstart company could buy Nokia in the future, to show that it had the chicken that laid golden eggs and they not only killed the chicken, but threw away the eggs.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

they said the standard phone isn't targeted at linux geeks, so am guessing it's do able, no matter what they do realistically, it's always do able, and if there staying true to being open i don't see why the boot loader should be locked, and yes drivers are closed source, but as long as they give us something to work with in the OS itself what's the problem? Then again were talking as if they've already abandoned the customers and moved on leaving them with ****, even though they haven't yet released a phone. wow nokia has made people cynical

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Why don't they just make one phone and make it so that you can ENABLE a dev mode? That would make more sense to me.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Just a technical question: The fact that they're targeting China - could this mean there's a chance that the first bath of phones they'll produce won't operate on European/American 3G networks? Or are such issues a thing of the past?

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Getting to retail in China is important for them to ensure batch sizes being in at least tens thousands mark (even 50 phones per each of 2000 D.Phone shops is already 100K phones). This is important step to reduce production costs. China retailing also reduces logistic issues as devices would most likely to be produced there as well.

So this is good strategy from short term perspective of getting fast to the market.

I'm sure at some point they will get through CE certification process in EU, probably faster than through FCC for U.S.

For those who were asking about Nokia funding them, I think Jussi made clear in his interviews that Nokia's involvement is only through Bridge programme which recently was detailed in this article: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/10/nok...nokia-has-not/

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

AFAIU that exactly what they are doing.

http://www.intomobile.com/2012/07/11...ext-available/

Also yet more info (in finnish)

http://www.taloussanomat.fi/yrittaja.../201233642/137

In short: "We've had prototype"

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

http://www.taloussanomat.fi/yrittaja.../201233642/137

Jolla-boss: "It is obvious that we've had a prototype"

The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer, that aims at least for Chinese markets, is already very far with negotiations with electronics contract manufacturers, says CEO.

- We have already reached an advanced stage, but we do not want to reveal the name of our partners. It is clear that we have had some kind of a prototype of the phone, President and CEO Jussi Jolla Hurmola says to Taloussanomat.

Mobile phone manufacturer Jolla (Nokia's former MeeGo employees) has not yet announced any phone. The company plans to introduce the first smart phone model this year. The company is not going to make their own smart phones, but will order them from an external contract manufacturer.

Jolla today announced a sales and distribution agreement of the Chinese mobile phone chain of stores with D.phonen.

According to Hurmola, contract agreement with D.phone was "first dealership, which was announced". He doesn't neither confirm or deny that if Jolla already has some other distribution agreements.

Operators Added?

Hurmola says that the Chinese partner to help bring the dinghy for the Chinese market a suitable phone. China's smartphone market is large and Finnish companies are understandably interested about them.

Market research firm Strategy Analytics estimated last November that China overtook the United States the world's largest smart phone market, while the meter is sold smartphones.

According to CEO Hurmolan Jolla is also negotiating to get a phone operator in China tying. The negotiations, however, does not have any more to tell.

D.phonen Jolla and the joint release of D.phone is China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile-phone operators' strategic partner.

He who has bargained sales and distribution agreements in Finland. Consultations have been held for operators and retailers.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

http://www.ossimantylahti.com/2012/0...ging-director/

I don't like such notion that consumers are treated like dummies who can't flash OS image on the device. It should not be as hard as hacking the kernel. Especially if it's something written on the sdcard and etc.

At least they are still planning to allow something like that I hope:

Somewhat confusing though. Before he said there will be one device with open (developer) and regular mode. Now it sounds like there will be two devices.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

In terms of locked bootloader, I'm guessing one of two things
1) Full-price devices straight from Jolla will be unlocked ("dev"), subsidised from carriers won't be.
or 2) We've not got the right translation. From the official translation, it says:
Now that could either be "Consumers are not permitted to..." or "Consumers are on average not technically able enough to..." - can a native Finnish speaker look at the original?

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

The first one is closer to the original. So seems like separate developer/enthusiast phone. Hopefully it will be easily available and not only through some special contacts.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Original finnish:
– Jollan puhelin tulee olemaan massamarkkinoille suunnattu oikea älypuhelin. Se ei tule olemaan pelkkä Linux-hakkereille tarkoitettu teknologiapuhelin. Kuluttajat eivät pääse suoraan itse puukottamaan puhelimen kerneliä tai flashaamaan siihen uutta ohjelmistoa.

My translation:
Jolla phone will be a real smartphone aimed at the mass consumer market. It will not be aimed to just Linux-geeks. Consumer will not be able to directly hack the kernel or to flash it with new software.

Original:
– Tarkoituksemme on tehdä Open Source -yhteisölle, Linuxista ja avoimista järjestelmistä kiinnostuneille ja partnereille oma kehittäjäversio puhelimesta, jossa nämä ovat mahdollisia.

My translation:
Our intention is to make separate version for Open Source community, Linux enthusiasts and people interested about open systems, in which these (these as in the things mentioned above) will be possible.

The way I understood is that the consumer version will propably require somekind of 'Jailbreak' for full access.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

So it's still possible that it'll be one device, but somehow in locked and unlocked modes (I don't like the "jailbreak" term).

I hope open device will allow:
1. booting from the sdcard, where one can write [any bootable] OS image without hassle.
2. Having open kernel (not like Harmtattan). Or if it will be secured with something akin to Aegis, user will have full control over what to allow or disallow there.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

"For example I can’t tell you anything about possible partnership with Intel."

That statement scares me.... Does this actually mean they MAY consider using an Intel chipset OMG! please NO.

I want ARM not shitty x86 :(

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

or Intel.......

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

This, this I don't like. Defensive, traditional thinking. An OS that only geeks can possibly care about for the next four quarters, and has an market share of 0.00% should not start it's segmentation willfully already. Putting up hoops for early adapters to jump through when their odds are so low already.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Too early to fully understand what they mean. It can simply mean some device setting flippable on the same device (but not intended for non technical users). So no need to panic yet.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

I think that they are currently using N9 / N950 as a prototype to test and develop their software and also I think that at first the N9 will be used as developer device for community as well. This is just cheapest way of doing it. Later, yes there could be also special version of their own device for development purposes, but at the moment is seems bit unrealistic.

Re: JollaMobile : Jolla continues Nokia's excellent work on #MeeGo based smartphones
 

Well the deal at leat is good news I mean the Chinesee are not stupid they were probably shown something in order to close the deal. I wish we knew what they saw :D