Jolla is still a fairly young company, but already it is announcing that it will be splitting up its software and hardware business, with Jolla Ltd. focusing solely on Sailfish OS, its mobile operating system.
Sailfish OS may not be a very popular operating system just yet, but Jolla did create a phone and tablet to house the operating system, with the tablet having raised more than $2.5 million in an Indiegogo campaign late last year.
"Every young company has to find its clear focus at some time, and for Jolla that time is now," said Antti Saarnio, chairman of the board at Jolla. "We have huge opportunities in the Sailfish OS licensing business, and I am very proud and excited to take responsibility of steering the Jolla ship to a new commercial phase. After three years of intensive Sailfish OS research [and] development we are now moving full speed to new bigger waters, which require[s] full focus on software from the team."
Jolla, if you haven't heard of it, was started by a couple of ex-Nokia employees. Basically, Nokia merged Maemo, a platform that it was developing, with Intel's Mobile project, resulting in a new platform called MeeGo. Jolla then took MeeGo and created a new interface for it, with the end result being Sailfish OS.
Of course, the announcement doesn't mean that Jolla will be abandoning its hardware business altogether. Apart from the new company, which is yet to be named, Jolla still intends to deliver the Jolla Tablet to Indiegogo supporters later this year despite the fact that it is experiencing "supply issues" for some of the parts.
One question that some might have is who will be licensing Sailfish OS from Jolla. The company has not offered a list of companies just yet, but it says that it has found some success in countries like India and Russia.
Jolla isn't the only company attempting to find partners willing to license its open-source mobile operating system. Samsung is doing much the same thing with its Tizen platform, although of course Samsung has an advantage in that it has a highly successful hardware business and a lot more money to pour into software development. While Jolla doesn't have hardware to fall back on, judging on the popularity of the Jolla Tablet Indiegogo campaign, it might not need a hardware business.
While we don't yet know who is licensing Sailfish OS, we have a few hints as to who isn't. Contrary to recent rumors, Russia is not developing its own mobile OS based on Sailfish OS. Yota has also denied rumors that it will be selling a YotaPhone featuring Sailfish OS.
Via: Engadget
