You may have heard of the MeeGo OS before. It was a combination of Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Mobilin (Linux Mobile) platforms. The OS is already available on plenty of low-cost netbooks and Nokia was all set to adopt it in a big way for their smartphones. They even announced their first Meego smartphone, the Nokia N9. But then, they had a change of heart and decided to join Microsoft instead in making Windows Phone handsets. With one of the two major proponents of the OS having abandoned the project, it seemed MeeGo’s fate was sealed once and for all.
Therefore, It’s no secret that the MeeGo mobile platform has been struggling since then, despite Intel’s pledge of continuing support and all the positive reviews it has received. Alas, it looks like that struggle shall finally come to an end. Intel has hunted and found a new Partner in the form of Samsung. Samsung will not be the only one aiding the development of Tizen. It is sponsored by Linux Foundation and LiMo Foundation, which include companies like Panasonic Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, Telefonica, ACCESS, NEC Casio and Vodafone.
Late last month the Linux Foundation and the LiMo Foundation announced a new open source project, Tizen, that appears to be a replacement for the ill-fated MeeGo, which will now apparently fade quietly away unless a new bunch of developers with an “itch to scratch” pick it up for their own purposes.
“While Meego will remain a project at The Linux Foundation, we see industry leaders lining up behind Tizen,” wrote Jim Zemlin, the foundation’s executive director, in a blog post on Tuesday. “Of course Meego is open source, so if there is an itch to scratch best served by its code and community, developers are welcome to participate. There has been a lot of great work done in the Meego project, and we are pleased to see that code carried over to Tizen.”
Open Source Technology
Tizen is a fully open, cross-architecture software platform based on Linux that’s intended for use in a range of device categories, including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks, and in-vehicle infotainment systems.
HTML5
A heavy emphasis on HTML5 will distinguish Tizen, whose application programming interfaces will be based on that and other Web standards. “We anticipate that the vast majority of Tizen application development will be based on these emerging standards,” the project’s website explains.
Included among the capabilities covered by those APIs will be messaging, multimedia, camera, network and social media. For developers who use native code in their applications, the Tizen SDK will include a native development kit.
It’s actually because of HTML5 that the decision was made to launch a whole new platform rather than reshaping MeeGo, according to Intel director Imad Sousou.
“Shifting to HTML5 doesn’t just mean slapping a web runtime on an existing Linux, even one aimed at mobile, as MeeGo has been,” Sousou said in a blog post on the MeeGo site. “Emphasizing HTML5 means that APIs not visible to HTML5 programmers need not be as rigid, and can evolve with platform technology and can vary by market segment.”
Tizen is set to make a splash in Q1 of 2012 with the first devices and the SDK being released then. The platform will be hosted at the Linux Foundation. Development will be completely open and led by a technical steering team composed of Intel and Samsung. Hopefully it will have a longer run than what MeeGo did and someday will become a viable option to iOS or Android in the smartphone or tablet space.
Cheers,
mkMob, Advance through Mobile
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