While MeeGo is not now going to become one of the 'big-three' or the lead Nokia platform, it probably does have a healthy a viable future as a niche platform.

http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/nokia-microsoft-and-what-it-means-for-qt-and-meego/

1) Lack of focus on core purpose – a mainstream smartphone operating system with possible tablet options based on ARM architecture.
2) Loss of direct control of the product.

A total clusterf**k in other words.

And ‘very close’ translates to ‘too late’. It had its chance, didn’t deliver on time and will now, hopefully, be taken back in house so it can be developed into what it was supposed to be before they wasted over a year with this idiotic partnership.

Take off the rose coloured glasses. That’s the reality.

Anyway I just found it funny that never before I had heard that the term used by itself to mean “the next big thing”, or a positive thing at all, but after Elop spoke it, all sites began quoting it as if it was a word of everyday .

Does it have anything to do with the Force?

Do you know that Google bought Android 2005 and Android started playing in the market in 2007 and harvest in 2010.

IOs started in 2007 but the development in secret was 3 years.

It was not a problem at all if Meego was not ready. Maemo was very close to a finalized product. Nokia just provided a transition from Maemo to Meego, compatibility that was in the plan making the Meego work. QT would also help it.

But now it was brutally killed at its early birth by short-eyesight BoD and idiot Elop!

Suppose MeeGo is actually rotten at the moment in terms of not being ready for consumer launch? Remember, it should have gone mainstream in late 2010. What do Nokia do – they have to plan for the future and whilst the vast amount of Symbian’s annoyances can be fixed with some simple UI updates we all know it was due for transition to MeeGo via Qt.

So, Nokia are faced with having no new OS, an existing OS that, although successful has fallen behind the times and which has been tarnished by the media, and a need to be seen to compete.

Enter Microsoft, an OS provider who have failed to capture the market by releasing a watered down OS, but one that can be rapidly improved. So Nokia go with WP7 – Android really would be suicide and the rest are closed.

But what of MeeGo? I think it needs taken in house and the partnership with Intel terminated because, and I’ve always maintained this, it’s a stupid idea trying to make a cross platform/hardware OS when the focus should be on optimising for the next generation of ARM chips. The Symbian Foundation should have shown that this kind of venture doesn’t work.

If it’s kept in house then maybe, just maybe, Nokia can do a Samsung and quietly develop their own OS whilst surviving (or even thriving) on WP7. Then, like Samsung, they can start to introduce their own OS branded handsets and build a customer base because, let’s face it, if Bada takes off then Samsung will drop Android like a hot potato.

So that’s one possibility. The other is, of course, that it’s a hostile takeover by MS in all but name and Maemo (what it should be) and Qt are toast. Judging by the projected future R&D spend I’m more optimistic than pessimistic though.