Jolla was founded by ex- Nokia employees interested in continuing to develop the Meego operating system Nokia dumped when that company started using Windows Phone software for its smartphones.
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“We have already proven that there is demand for unlike Jolla devices in the market”, said Dr Saarnio, “and we continue to see good opportunities for it. We have now decided to continue the Jolla devices business under a new company, focusing on security enhanced devices”.
Jolla, the company behind open-source Sailfish OS, today announced that it will split its business into to separate companies.
Jolla has announced that it’s splitting itself into two companies: one that will focus on software and one that’ll be all hardware. Jolla took the core of MeeGo and reworked the interface to create its own Sailfish OS.
The first device to ship with Sailfish was the Jolla smartphone, and the company has a tablet in the works as well. “After three years of intensive Sailfish OS research and development we are now moving full speed to new bigger waters, which requires full focus on software from the team”.
As a result of the new development, Dr. Antti Saarnio, Chairman of Board of Jolla Ltd takes charge of leading the company, whereas Dr. Tomi Pienimäki, ex- CEO, has now been appointed to a new position outside the company and will move in August. Jolla raised $2.5 million via an Indiegogo campaign to launch the tablet around the world. It’s expected that the problems will be resolved “very soon”.
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The move for Jolla from a hardware and OS business to just an OS business has shades of the time when Steve Jobs’ NeXT computers made the same move. Eventually. As soon as possible, they say. More exactly, Jolla Ltd. will concentrate only on developing and licensing Sailfish OS, while “after the summer” a brand new company will be established to take care of making and selling devices – including the Jolla Smartphone, the Jolla Tablet, and all future Jolla-branded hardware products. When a new The Other Half is attached, the look of the software on the phone changes too.
