Nokia's own partnership with Microsoft has sidelined its Intel venture, MeeGo, though the Finnish firm still plans to release a device running the OS this year and to maintain it as an open source project - and possible back-up plan for the cloud sector. Meanwhile, LG had its own deep partnership with Microsoft, and in 2009 pledged to release 50 Windows Mobile products in two years. At the time this was the most significant WinMo commitment apart from HTC's, but few results have been seen and LG's position will have been undermined by the signing of Nokia.
This may be turning the Korean supplier's eyes to a platform it could control. Although it is belatedly making some progress in Android smartphones, it has not achieved the differentiation in brand to pose a serious threat to Samsung, HTC and Motorola. Last year its CEO stepped down, with failure in the smartphone market cited as a major factor. So now the company badly needs new weapons to boost its market share in 2011, especially at the high end, where its brand is weakest.
LG has worked with Intel more closely than most handset majors, and has shown off a smartphone running on the Atom processor, even though this was not, in the end, commercialized. Now Valtteri Halla, a member of the MeeGo technical steering group, has told Reuters that Nokia's new strategy is "opening opportunities for the others to come in …. Discussions are taking place. You'll see things coming out this year, pretty soon." In particular, he said LG has joined a working group to develop a version of MeeGo specifically for handsets. To date it has mainly been geared to netbooks, tablets and emerging form factors such as 'cloudbooks'.
Other companies that are aiming to stand out from the smartphone crowd include ZTE, which has also joined the working group, as has China Mobile. The latter has created its own software platform based largely on Android, but wants a multi-OS play, and had a deepening partnership with Symbian until Nokia's change of direction. China is seen as a potential center to create some real scale around MeeGo, partly because of Google's problems there - earlier this month, Intel set up a joint venture with Tencent in China, to create a MeeGo development facility that will employ up to 200 engineers. It is also rumored to be creating a reference design with ZTE.
However, the Atom/MeeGo combination has a long way to go to be proven for low power handsets or to score any points against Android. It is more likely to thrive in newer device categories where the battle lines are more fluid and LG itself told FierceWireless that its first MeeGo products would not be phones by in-care infotainment systems. This is a sector where MeeGo is widely expected to become a serious force.
In February, Intel CEO Paul Otellini told an analysts' meeting: "We will find another partner for MeeGo. The carriers still want a third ecosystem and the carriers want an open ecosystem, and that's the thing that drives our motivation."
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