04 December 2008

Nokia eyes Linux as the platform
for their for high-end Smartphones

Most of the tech bloggers have been cranking up the news that Nokia eyes Linux as the platform for their for high-end phones!

Speculation started when the Ukko Lappalainen, vice president at Nokia's markets unit, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the "Nokia World" that "In the longer perspective, Linux will become a serious alternative for our high-end phones"

Actually analysts have been speculating on for a couple of months now about Linux OS based Nokia phones and even about Nokia plans to merge Symbian and its S60 platform with Google's Android to provide single open source OS!

However, despite all these blogosphere reports and analysts predictions I am pretty sure that Nokia will force Symbian and the upcoming Foundation OS that will be build on top of their S60 platform. Sure, I can't really say that Nokia won't do a Linux phone in the future, but it certainly wouldn't seem to be in the company's current thinking and they'll not release the Linux powered phone anytime soon and it definitely wont be a phone based on the Google's Linux based Android platform!

Linux's role in the handset industry is growing as Google has introduced its Linux-based Android platform but I am pretty sure Nokia will rather use their in house Linux based Maemo platform for its Internet tablets line, while they will continue to uses Symbian software for its Smartphones!

"I don't see anything in Android which would make it better than Linux maemo," Lappalainen said.

Nokia didn't spend its 264 million euro ($339.9 million) on the Symbian buy-out to replace with some Linux based platform just like that! OK it is quite possible that Nokia will add cell phone functionality to the next wave of their tablets but it doesn't means that they'll switch their Smartphone line to Linux at all!