There is a high possibility that Jolla is being funded by Nokia as well, as a Plan B for them, reason why it is located next to Nokia's main campus...if this is true, more interesting as this proceeds.
There's almost no possibility that this is a Plan B for Nokia. Stop taking those delusional fanboi dreams on Mynokiablog.com seriously. If Nokia wanted Meego/Linux to be their Plan B, it would have been simpler to not fire Meego people, not to kill all internal Linux projects, not to start divesting away from Qt, not to have CEO giving interviews about never returning to Meego, not to have the Plan B based on 5 dudes in a basement, etc etc etc.
They were using Nokia Bridge money, but so were almost all people who were fired during the Elopcalypse. They can't all be Plan Bs.
Location near NRC means nothing. Ruoholahti is full of high tech corporations ('Slush valley', ie. northern Silicon valley). Their adress is in a building that provides office space for small startups. Its also the newest of Ruoholahti's latest batch of big office buildings. Just the type of address that a new finnish high tech startup is expected to have. No Nokia link required.
There's almost no possibility that this is a Plan B for Nokia. Stop taking those delusional fanboi dreams on Mynokiablog.com seriously. If Nokia wanted Meego/Linux to be their Plan B, it would have been simpler to not fire Meego people, not to kill all internal Linux projects, not to start divesting away from Qt, not to have CEO giving interviews about never returning to Meego, not to have the Plan B based on 5 dudes in a basement, etc etc etc.
They were using Nokia Bridge money, but so were almost all people who were fired during the Elopcalypse. They can't all be Plan Bs.
Location near NRC means nothing. Ruoholahti is full of high tech corporations ('Slush valley', ie. northern Silicon valley). Their adress is in a building that provides office space for small startups. Its also the newest of Ruoholahti's latest batch of big office buildings. Just the type of address that a new finnish high tech startup is expected to have. No Nokia link required.
The "old nokia" that we is used to love don't exists anymore.. bye bye. Forget nokia!
The "new nokia" is now one more sillicon valley corporation since elops arrived.
So, forget Nokia and lets look forward. I hope Jolla capture the magic that Nokia used to have pre-elops
I don't see how you will not be patent trolled (sued) by Microhard if you ship out your product with ACL included or even easily available as an app. They will say you are making in essence an android phone and still violating their lame inapplicable patents that are just an excuse to sue other mobile companies because they are losers in the mobile market. I don't want to see Microsoft put a hole in your dingy.
I dearly hope that the Harmattan UX gets a second life through Jolla. Surely a licensing option is possible.
Nokia has nothing to lose from licensing Harmattan Swipe UX to Jolla now that Meltemi is kaput. What a waste it would be if Nokia hoards the UX, never to be seen in a commercial device again.
Quick translation to english (rest is google translated cause my time ran out):
MeeGo is "a hobby worth 10 millions"
The financing of Jolla-company is a mystery, although they have promissed to release a new MeeGo smartphone with a quick schedule. An expert thinks, that their plans are possible to implement and achieve because a functional software is already existing.
Manufacturing a MeeGo phone and getting it to break through the market require some capital, but CEO of Jolla, Jussi Hurmola, right now refuses to tell about the donors and the amounts. Fuss around the company, founded last year by ex-nokians, have been increasing since the company told last weekend that they will publish a MeeGo phone of their own later this year.
According to Hurmola, financing for the first phase is ready and done, when the first device will be launched for market. The money will be spent for example to research and development, marketing, manufacturing and also to mezzanine financing, with a result of working and complete device.
"In a modern world, It doesn't anymore require so huge amounts of money. It is like a hobby worth of ten million euros", says Hurmola.
According to six months old financial statements, the company still seems quite modest: the amount of invested capital is 103 700 euros and they have about 89 000 euros cash in store. According to Trade Register data, the capital still is 2500
"There have been lots of changes. The information about the company is outdated", says Hurmola. "We have both domestic and foreign private investors. Private for the reason that we are able to keep the companys strategy in our hands."
Research director Pekka Ylä-Anttila of Economy Research Institute (Elinkeinoelämän tutkimuslaitoksen (ETLA)) is surprised by the news, but thinks the project is possible
"A functional operating system already exists so making and arranging a phone with this quick schedule is feasible", Ylä-Anttila says.
What Ylä-Anttila thinks is interesting is that Nokia still owns lots of MeeGo patents and the upcoming product will become a competitor to Nokia in to the already very crowded mobile phone market.
"My point of view is that the device now in development is made for very narrow customer field. Is the device ment to be for Linux-geeks or will they implement something new into the device what other competitors are not able to provide, is difficult to assess at this stage.
Ecstasy and major changes
The former director of Nokia Tomi Ahonen, now influences in Hong Kong, praises Jolla on Twitter: "All investors, Jolla is the possibility, which you have been waiting for, when you began to follow me (on Twitter). Please find out about it."
According to Wall Street Journal, Jolla is a strong player with a number of employers from Nokia's MeeGo team, including chief engineer Marc Dillon and product manager Jukka Eklund .
Hurmola says that the company currently has approximately 50 employees and by the end of the year a hundred. Main sections are calculated firm's payroll for the occupants. In addition, the company uses a number of sub-contractors, and discussions with large partners are well advanced.
Hurmola says that the unit of production carried out in collaboration with major international companies, which design and produce products that other companies are marketing their own brand names.
