Ex-Nokia staff to build MeeGo-based smartphones

A group of ex-Nokia staff and MeeGo enthusiasts has formed Jolla (Finnish for “dinghy”), a mobile startup with the aim of bringing new MeeGo devices to the market. According to its LinkedIn page, Jolla consists of “directors and core professionals from Nokia’s MeeGo N9 organization, together with some of the best minds working on MeeGo in the communities.”
As Jolla isn’t affiliated with Nokia it won’t be providing support or updates for the popular N9 smartphone or N950 developer handset. The Finnish startup is led by Chief Operating Officer Marc Dillon. With Nokia for almost 11 years, Dillon was the company’s Principal Engineer for MeeGo (formerly Maemo) from January 2006 until he left the company in May of this year. A full statement from Jolla follows below.
“Nokia created something wonderful – the world’s best smartphone product. It deserves to be continued, and we will do that together with all the bright and gifted people contributing to the MeeGo success story.
Together with international investors and partners, Jolla Ltd. will design, develop and sell new MeeGo based smartphones. The Jolla team consists of a substantial number of MeeGo’s core engineers and directors, and is aggressively hiring the top MeeGo talent to contribute to the next generation smartphone production.”