Intel, Nokia Unite Open-Source Mobile Platforms

Intel and Nokia kicked off the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain, with the announcement that their respective handheld and mobile device operating systems, Moblin and Maemo, will be merged into a single open-source operating system called MeeGo.

According to the two companies, the new platform will be built on the best features found in the Intel-backed, open-source Moblin, and the mostly open-source, Nokia-backed Maemo. The new OS will be available in the second quarter, they said, while products are expected before the end of the year.

MeeGo will use Nokia's Qt development platform and will run on a wide range of devices, including tablets, netbooks, smartphones, car entertainment systems, pocket-sized mobile computers, media phones, and connected TVs.

The two firms said applications written for MeeGo will be available for all devices by both firms and those apps will be sold through both Nokia's Ovi Store and Intel's (NASDAQ: INTC) AppUp Center.

"Our vision for seamlessly communicating between computing devices from the home, auto, office or your pocket is taking a big step forward today with the introduction of MeeGo," said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini in a statement. "This is a foundational step in our evolving relationship with Nokia. The merging of these two important assets into an open-source platform is critical toward providing a terrific experience across a variety of devices and gaining cross-industry support."

At the press conference in Barcelona to announce MeeGo, Nokia executives said the arrival of MeeGo does not mean an abandonment of the open-source Symbian operating system of which it's the key backer, although there has been speculation that Nokia is indeed distancing itself from Symbian. It will still be used in low-end phones, and apps developed for MeeGo using the Qt framework will be portable to Symbian, the companies said.

Both Intel and Nokia also stressed that their new platform would remain fully open-source. The MeeGo software platform will be hosted by the Linux Foundation as a fully open-source project and will encourage participation by the open-source community in further development of the platform.

According to the FAQ on the MeeGo Web site, the operating system will support both Intel's Atom and ARM architectures. The MeeGo source code, along with the build system and developer tools, will be released in the coming weeks.

Analyst Jack Gold, president of J. Gold Associates, sees the move benefitting Nokia more than it does Intel, since the Finnish mobile giant had hit a glass ceiling with Symbian.

"Most developers agree that Symbian is difficult to develop for and maintain," Gold said in a research note. "And the development of apps across multiple platforms is becoming a big impediment to ISVs who are forced to pick and choose a limited number of platforms to develop for. Nokia required a new approach, and although it won't abandon Symbian in the short term, its desire to move to smarter, more feature-rich devices across multiple form factors requires that Nokia seek an alternative. And since it's unlikely Nokia will support Android or its sister OS Chrome, MeeGo provides that alternative."

More Than Meets the Eye?

The press conference was devoted entirely to software talk, unusual for two firms best known for their plastic and silicon products. While the two said nothing of hardware work, hobbyist site Bright Side of News claims Nokia and Intel will work on hardware projects down the road.

Intel has long shown interest in beefing up its mobile portfolio. At CES last month, CEO Paul Otellini demonstrated the company's newest Atom processor, Moorestown, powering a Moblin-based smartphone. Nokia currently uses the ubiquitous ARM processor.

Gold's commentary, written independent of the BSN claims, noted that the alliance with Nokia gives the company a chance to compete against ARM. "Intel understands that ultimately, far more smart device chips will be sold than PC chips, and therefore developed Atom to compete directly with ARM. If Atom is to be successful, it must be able to attack ARM in its heartland -- the smart device market for net-based devices and high-end smartphones where huge volumes of devices are being designed," he wrote.

"Next-generation Atom chips (2010/11) will achieve close to parity with ARM in low power, and will run existing Windows and Android OSes. And with MeeGo, Nokia gains the option of moving to Atom-based systems to enhance their device performance and take advantage of the IA platform for both high-end smartphones and enhanced personal appliances," Gold added.

But Nathan Brookwood, research fellow with Insight 64, isn't exactly sold on the MeeGo deal.

"I see the MeeGo move as one of desperation for Intel. With so many OSes targeting the mobile/handheld/smartphone market, it must have been nearly impossible to persuade ISVs to pay attention to Moblin, especially given that it ran only on x86 hardware. Now at least they’ll have Nokia in their corner, and can argue that once an app is ported to MeeGo on ARM (where do they get these names?), it will run with little effort on MeeGo on x86. Maybe with no effort, if they use a virtual machine architecture (a la Android) for most software," he told InternetNews.com via e-mail.

Requests for comment from Intel and Nokia were not returned as of press time.

Andy Patrizio is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.