Like London buses, mobile Linux operating systems travel in threes. Hard on the heels of plans to open source Samsung bada, and the merger of MeeGo and LiMO to form Tizen, Nokia is reported to be developing its own platform, Meltemi. However, this will not be another challenger to Android, but will be focused on the featurephone market which has recently been Nokia's main source of growth.
Nokia creates yet another mobile Linux OS - Rethink Wireless
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It hopes that pattern will change when it releases its first WP7 smartphones, but in the meantime, it needs to consolidate its market share at the low end by adding value and providing a better user experience than the ultra-low cost competitors from China and Taiwan. Nokia has seen erosion of its admittedly huge share in key markets like India and China, as brands like Samsung and ZTE gain ground and as some featurephone users migrate to low cost smart devices running Android. Featurephones accounted for about 47% of Nokia's device sales during the second quarter and CEO Stephen Elop announced a strategy to strengthen the attack on emerging markets and on Android. Like other OEMs, Nokia has effectively called the death of the traditional featurephone, except in some sub-$20 niches whose margins are too low even for the efficient Finnish giant. Instead, the low cost market will be based on semi-smart devices running Android, Java, Qualcomm Brew, and various flavors of Linux, which Nokia hopes will include Meltemi.Nokia creates yet another mobile Linux OS - Rethink Wireless
