MeeGo should have happened YeersaGo

Rodney Gedda

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

Today marked two significant releases in the mobile computing arena – Apple launched the iPad and Intel and Nokia announced the availability of MeeGo 1.0 for netbooks. If only the latter had happened a few years ago. What’s interesting about MeeGo is how quickly it arrived and the seeming ease at how well Intel and Nokia have collaborated.

Earlier this year Intel and Nokia brushed off whatever pride they had with their own Linux-based mobile operating systems and focused on MeeGo.

Nokia is used to duking it out with a range of competitors in the mobile space, but Intel on the other hand has been Microsoft’s lackey for years.

The “you want the next version of Windows, you need a new computer” cycle may have served Intel well over the past two decades, but the advent of mobile computing has created a whole new playing field.

Nowadays people care less about speed and more about whether they can listen to music and update their Facebook status while on the train.

With MeeGo consumers have another option for a mobile operating environment alongside Android, Windows 7 and iPhone/iPad OS.

How popular MeeGo becomes is anyone’s guess at this stage, but if Intel’s OEMs begin shipping it with their netbooks and tablet PCs it could become a familiar sight. And, like Android, it is an open source operating system any device maker can adopt.

MeeGo a good example of how two tech companies can quickly make something user-friendly out of “raw” open source components. It even uses the “experimental” Btrfs Linux file system.

What is strange is why big the tech vendors didn’t collaborate and development something like MeeGo for the PC desktop 15 years ago.

Back then it was all about “standardising” on Windows and putting all your R&D into the latest hardware, not software.

With mobile software having become too strategic – even to a company like Intel – the wider industry has finally realised there’s no reason why Apple or Microsoft should have a free run at it.

The ridiculously high hype factor aside, images of people lining up to get their hands on an iPad indicates consumers are starved of mobile computing options.

I commend Apple for raising the bar in portable computing software, but I don’t put Apple on a pedestal that other players can’t reach or exceed.

Apple is innovative, but it’s not that innovative. It’s not the source of all the world’s software innovation. It leverages open source a lot and has even been known to borrow UI concepts.

Can the MeeGo concept be extended further? You bet.

We’ve seen companies like Dell offer Linux pre-loaded on some of its notebooks sold in the US.

Dell could dedicate resources to improving Linux, but if Dell, HP, Acer and Lenovo all did the same then it would be way more compelling.

If collaboration leads to better software, one day we might be forced to thank Nokia and Intel for taking the leap and developing MeeGo. For now, at least, we won’t be forced to use something dependent on Apple, Google or Microsoft.