It’s a tough environment out there for an OS. But a few have risen to the top of the food chain — most obviously iOS and Android. And at the very bottom, like an orphaned and endangered baby buffalo, sits MeeGo.
Nokia has already fled from the burning platform, but now its only remaining parent, Intel, has reportedly decided to temporarily discontinue development of MeeGo. But for a platform with barely any traction and a comparatively weak portfolio of devices, temporarily could very quickly turn into forever.
And so the slow death of MeeGo begins.
Digitimes’ sources say that Intel will instead primarily focus on hardware, and plans to pair its products with either Windows Phone 7 or Android next year. Of course, Intel refused to comment with the standard “we don’t comment on industry speculation or rumors.” But Intel did say that “it remains committed to MeeGo and will continue to work with the community to develop and help meet the needs of customers and end users with open source.”
It seems odd that Intel would “not comment on speculation,” only to deny the rumors in the same breath. As far as platforms go, MeeGo is actually a surprisingly smart little OS and may still have a little life in it yet. But if Intel let’s it sit idle, “temporarily” or otherwise, it’ll be dead and buried before you know it.
A little under a year after MeeGo launched, Intel promised it was “not blinking on MeeGo,” despite the fact that partner Nokia had become distracted. Still, we sort of saw this coming. Intel doesn’t necessarily need MeeGo, as Android and Windows Phone are already supported by the company.