Another interview with Jolla’s CEO

A couple of interviews again with Jolla’s CEO. First one was kindly translated by jiipee.

http://blogit.tietokone.fi/ossi/2012/07/haastattelussa-jollan-jussi-hurmola/

You can read jiipee’s translation below but I think crisscross has found the english version in the next link:

http://www.ossimantylahti.com/2012/07/interview-of-jussi-hurmola-jolla-mobiles-managing-director/

• There is possibility for co-branding
• First phone is directed to mass market and is a true smartphone, not something only for Linux devs. Consumers wont be able to hack the device or flash it.
• Their target is to make a separate device directed to Open source community, Linux fans and partners a separate developer device
• Financing for step one is secured. No indication related to turnover and profitability is available before the phone is launched
• Hurmola is amused of the question, how come they are going to launch a meego phone in less than a year, when getting half-meego phone out from Nokia took 2 year. “We were working on Meego and we know what went wrong in the process” Jolla consentraces on doing actual work and uses a lot of partners. “Nokia published the last Meego update few weeks ago. Open source community kept on working on Mer and Maemo also. A lot of work has been done since”
• On IP rigts: Our software stack is very much alike to the other players. Most of the code is open source Meego, Qt and Ophono. One needs to have certain basic tech to manufacture a phone: GSM, UMTS and IU codes. These we have licensed just like others. The differentiating factor, UI, is made by Jolla. (asked about Nokia IP) We have licensed certain IP right, but I cannot name them.
• What does Open source code mean to you? Almost all of us have been involved in OSS. Jolla is using RPM-based Mer distribution. Qt is important part of the device and we believe that Qt is the best platform for UI development. Jolla targets sharing most of it’s codebase to open source community and help to build the ecosystem. We are not going to own it, but lead it.
• What do you mean by “mahdollistaminen” (making possible)? There are a lot of players on the market with services that struggle between Android and IOS. Also resellers, operators and developers want another, different option. In addition consumers want to see something new in the UI department. In this case, making possible means that we can design a device completely from HW to SW.
• Unfortunately I cannot tell more about the HW. I cannot eg. say anything about Intel partnership. We will introduce the phone this year, but cannot yet promise it to be shipped for Christmas.
• What is different in our phone is true multitasking, app integration and information integration. I want to get rid of the way of using phone by opening and closing apps. It must be possible to customize the UI by the user. Multitasking can be problematic for power consumption. But we believe that by setting certain parametres corretly, we can overcome it. We have studied these things for 10 years and believe there is a solution for it. We also believe that by using the parametres correctly we can ensure that apps can work without continuous access to WLAN, and 3G and screen refresh.
• Where to get the apps? It is clear that we need apps to the ecosystem. So far we have published the Qt/Qml approach, but that is not enough. We keep on building the ecosystem and will have our own app store. When we are publishing the phone there needs to be plenty of apps available. We’ll let you know more then.
• What about Angry birds? It is already available on Meego device.

Cheers jiipee and crisscross for the tip.

Category: Jolla