Nokia’s N900: now we’re talking open mobility

Rodney Gedda

Rodney Gedda is the former deputy editor of CIO and former editor of Techworld.

In the past I’ve scorned Nokia’s early, but failed, attempt to develop a next-generation, open smartphone like the iPhone and Android, but if last week’s sneak peek at the N900 is anything to go by, the future looks very promising. The N900 is Nokia’s next generation “Internet tablet” and takes over from the N810.

Fans will be pleased to know Nokia has bitten the bullet and added a GSM phone to the device. Better late than never.

See blog posts about the new device at Endgadget and Mobile-review.com.

By the way, what do people think of the term “Internet tablet”? Irrelevant, pigeonholed and meaningless?

By this I mean Nokia has learnt the hard way that mobile Internet access rapidly became a standard across any mobile device.

When it first brought to market the N770 the term “Internet tablet” may have had some meaning, but today with more people surfing Web sites in the iPhone than any other mobile device (relative to the number of iPhones out there), it seems too dated.

All Nokia devices should promote mobile Internet access, not just some fancy “Internet tablet”. I digress.

Back to the N900 and why it has a lot of potential.

In addition to the GSM connectivity, the N900 will ship with Maemo, a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices.

I’ve discussed how Android will quickly become popular because it is open source and can be used by any handset maker. Maemo is in the same league.

In fact, with support for standard Linux applications and those developed with Qt, Maemo has a slight (albeit different) advantage over Android. Android’s main advantage at this point is exposure and uptake.

Maemo may have inspired Android, but Android cut Maemo’s grass.

Apple can produce a nice integrated software-hardware package like the iPhone, but then so can Nokia. Google will remain the big software-only smartphone player.

Nokia does have the integrated “phone system” expertise to rival Apple, and Linux in the form of Maemo (and Qt) will give it a software advantage.

And not having to go through an app store to distribute mobile applications is definitely another thing in Nokia’s favour.

An open platform, development environment, and software distribution method should make the N900 ideal for the business market and if the N900 shines expect to see the Maemo stack appear on other devices as well.

Nokia is finally beating a path to open mobility, even if it took a mobile revolution to swing it into action.