12.05.13
While Nokia Becomes Microsoft’s Anti-Linux Litigation Front, Pre-Elop Nokia Revived, Jolla Sells All Available Phones
Summary: More of the old products of Nokia are brought back to life owing to former Nokia staff while existing Nokia staff, led by a Microsoft mole, continues to attack Linux-powered phones with patents
MICROSOFT has crushed and destroyed Nokia, using its moles to take over the company and turn it from a Linux backer into a Linux foe. This is not an unusual routine from Microsoft; Corel comes to mind.
Nokia’s war on Android has taken another step in the UK, banning some of the nicest phones that I have come across (HTC phones are in many ways more impressive than Samsung phones). As the corporate media put it, a “London judge said HTC Corp. (2498) couldn’t sell its One Mini phone in the U.K. from Dec. 6 after it was found to have infringed patents owned by Nokia Oyj. (NOK1V)
“While Judge Richard Arnold also ruled that HTC’s One phone contained microchips that breached Nokia’s patent, he delayed an injunction against the product so HTC could appeal. Blocking U.K. sales of the One would cause “considerable” damage to HTC, he said in a ruling today.”
As iophk put it, Microsoft “left Nokia with the patents so it will have to troll for Microsoft to “monetize” them.”
Android has become so dominant that even BlackBerry is starting to lean towards it [1]. Google says that iPhone is behind [2], the new release of Android is a big improvement [3], and Free software is not neglected, not even by Ballnux companies (paying Microsoft for Linux) like HTC and Samsung [4,5]. Google is beaten to things by its partners [6], which shows just how passionate companies have become about Android.
The patent assault on Android shows that Microsoft has nothing technical to offer; it gave up trying, so it leans towards patents. This is a proxy war. There should be an antitrust investigation, but there is none. Nokia is a convenient proxy. Microsoft knows how to commit crimes and always get away with it, perhaps appeasing governments by aiding illegal surveillance.
Anyway, Microsoft’s attempts to destroy Nokia’s Linux efforts have not been entirely successful because the projects were licensed liberally. N900 is still around as Neo900 [7] and Jolla kept MeeGo alive and now has phones available (as covered in some massive publications including the BBC [8,9]), with good reviews already [10] and also claims that the “initial order was sold out” [11]. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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BlackBerry increases Android app support
BlackBerry is making it easier for Android applications to run on its latest smartphones.
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Eric Schmidt explains how to switch from iPhones to the ‘more intuitive’ Android system
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Android head talks Project Svelte and how Android 4.4 KitKat is the leanest Android version yet
Back during Google IO 2012, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean was officially unveiled unto the world. Major firmware versions always bring their share of new features, it was a little something Google called Project Butter that got us the most excited. Addressing Android less than consistent frame rates, Project Butter looked to finally make the Android UI as silky and smooth as iOS butter.
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HTC, Samsung release open source files for Google Play edition phones; KitKat OTAs should follow soon
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Android 4.3 rollout for Samsung Galaxy S4 resumes
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Android eyewear beats Google Glass to market
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Open source Neo900 phone gets enough pre-orders to go into production
The Neo900 is a phone designed to pick up where Nokia’s discontinued N900 left off. The N900 was one of the last phones to ship with the open source Maemo Linux operating system, and the developers of the Neo900 want to bring Maemo back to life with a compatible device featuring a faster processor, more memory, and support for 4G LTE mobile networks.
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Jolla: Ex-Nokia employees launch smartphone
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Jolla’s open-source smartphone makes debut
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Hands On With Jolla’s First Phone — The “Spearhead Device” For Its MeeGo-Successor Sailfish OS
The first handset from Finnish smartphone startup Jolla is simply called Jolla. This phone has been some two years in the making – a timeframe that testifies to the complexity of building handset hardware and a new mobile platform, not to mention rallying developers and achieving Android compatibility. So really two years ain’t bad for a plucky startup whose members used to work for erstwhile king-of-the-mobile-world, Nokia, and left to do what that phone maker decided it couldn’t: make a go of MeeGo as an alternative to Google’s all-consuming Android.
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Sailfish-Based Jolla Phone Debuts; Will Its New OS Fly?
That initial order was sold out, and the Jolla Oy company (pronounced Yol-la) said it has tens of thousands of orders pending from manufacturers in 136 countries looking for an alternative to Android. Without subsidies, the phone retails for about $540, including European Union taxes. The device, which some have compared to Nokia’s Lumia line, features a 4.5-inch display, a dual-core processor , an eight megapixel camera, 4G connectivity, Nokia’s HERE map service, 16GB of memory and a user-replaceable battery that’s good for up to about 10 hours per charge.
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