MeeGo is up in the air.
Nokia turned its back on MeeGo a while ago. Intel, meanwhile, promises to continue to support the open-source community, but reports claim that it has decided to temporarily suspend development of the platform. And so begins the rotation of a mighty rumor mill.
Mobiledia reported on Tuesday that Samsung was interested in purchasing MeeGo, citing unidentified industry sources. It’s true that Samsung does need to diversify in the OS department. The Googorola deal should have that affect on all of the major Android partners. Plus, there’s that whole “Microsoft cashing in on Android” thing to worry about.
But Samsung has even more to worry about. The company is Apple’s favorite litigation target (as well as one of its biggest competitors) and Android is Apple’s greatest obstacle on the path to mobile domination. A new OS would go a long way to get Apple off of Samsung’s back. But MeeGo? While it’s kind-of-sort-of-maybe plausible that Samsung would grab MeeGo, it’s a long shot.
Samsung has its own software platform up and running: Bada. If the company really wanted to partially split from Android, why not just work on the platform it already owns and make it perfect? Plus, even MeeGo’s co-creator Nokia isn’t all that fond of the platform. And as I mentioned earlier, Intel seems to be kind of over it, too. Why would Samsung run to snatch up a platform that has already been dropped by its makers?
Rather than dump on the platform, Samsung took the diplomatic route with its response: “Meego is an open source project which can not be a target of acquisition,” Samsung representative James Chung told CNET.
As far as software acquisitions go, all eyes have been on Samsung. When webOS was partially ditched by HP, rumors also circulated that Samsung may be interested in picking it up. Samsung denied those rumors about as quickly as they denied these.
Chung mentioned that “Samsung has been investing significantly in its own software, solutions, and content to differentiate its product offering and to provide a richer experience for consumers.” In other words, it sounds like Sammy will be sticking with Android for the time being, while continuing to tinker with Bada as a backup project.
Samsung is one of the largest super-multinational companies in the world. It’s possibly best known for it’s subsidiary, Samsung Electronics, the largest electronics company in the world.
Intel is best known for producing the microprocessors found in many personal computers. The company also makes a range of other hardware including network cards, motherboards, and graphics chips. Intel created the first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, but it was not until the success of the personal computer that microprocessors became their primary business. In the 1980’s they were an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chip, and during the 1990s they invested heavily in new microprocessor...
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