When we reported on Linux taking off in the mobile sector, we sort of assumed it was going to be a case of Android and other Linux-powered operating systems taking on the might of Nokia, Apple, et. al.
Now it looks like Nokia themselves might be joining in the fun.
Speaking at an investor’s conference, Nokia’s Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson said of Linux, “It’s going to be terribly important.”
This shouldn’t be too surprising, given Nokia’s investment in TrollTech - who write the GUI code for the popular Linux KDE desktop - and it needn’t spell the end of Symbian. Nokia has a 47% stake in that OS, after all, and has never been shy about having different operating systems for different classes of handset.
Perhaps this is more a form of bet hedging. If Android takes off the way everyone seems to think it will, it would be handy to have a ready made OS that will be broadly compatible with many Android apps. Or perhaps this will just end up as another Beta Labs skunkworks project.
If anyone from Nokia is reading this and there are some decent Linux hackers near you - any chance we could have a version of PC Suite that will work on my Ubuntu PC? It’s not like the Windows one worked particularly well, but it might be a show of good faith to the Linux community, if nothing else.
0 Responses to “Nokia ditching Symbian for Linux?”
Leave a Reply