Nokia's Stephen Elop: There's No Going Back to MeeGo

We were pretty perplexed to see Nokia announce the N9 just a few days ago: it was oddly timed, with the press embargo of Mango impressions from journalists only ending just a few hours after the announcement, and it was running MeeGo, which everyone presumed was dead.

Well it turns out we were right about that last part: Nokia's MeeGo days are over even before their flagship hits your doorstep. That's according to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who said as much in his interview with Helsingin Sanomat:

In Elop's words, there is no returning to MeeGo, even if the N9 turns out to be a hit.

“I have taken part in the conversations with the teleoperators and I have been part of the consumer test groups. The feedback has been extremely positive and I am sure that the Windows Phone system will be a great success”, Elop says of the strategic partnership announced with microsoft in February of this year.

This is a bit odd to us: when Nokia announced their partnership with Microsoft earlier this year, Stephen Elop called their Windows Phone hardware plan "a transition period" and they would eventually launch MeeGo (or possibly some other project) as a next generation smartphone operating system. So it's hard to tell from his comments here whether or not MeeGo really is dead or not, but at least for now the N9 is going to be more DOA than anyone had probably expected. The controversial CEO also went on to talk about Windows Phone and to dispel any worries the company's remaining Symbian employees may be feeling, and its a pretty good article so we recommend your check it out at Helsingin Sanomat.

With the announcement of over 1400 Nokia jobs being cut by the end of the year in Finland alone, these are hard times for the company. Thousands more are left to think whether they will stand by Nokia's side as the company moves towards Windows Phone, and even though S40 is still sticking around while Symbian is phased out we can't imagine development would demand as many employees as Nokia has.

Via: PocketNow
Source: Helsingin Sanomat