In its continued attempt to reduce costs, the Finnish handset manufacturer which was once the world leader in the mobile phone industry, Nokia, has shed its project to develop an operating system meant for mass production as direct competition to Google’s Android OS. This information was revealed by three sources who are placed close to the development of it and said that Nokia was under the impression that the new OS would replace its Series 40 OS on several phones and offer exciting new features.
The OS is Linux based, codenamed Meltemi, and it was designed for mid range phones that currently run the age old Symbian S40 software. Now that Nokia has decided to scrap even the S40 OS, it might lose its stronghold i.e. the mid range segment where it had a market share of more than 20% this quarter. The only time that the alleged Meltemi platform was showcased by Nokia was in a leaked video back in 2011 but no official comment was made. Moreover, the company remained silent about news that it decided to shut down the development.
Earlier this year, in June, the company said that it would cut around 10,000 jobs i.e. 20% of its workforce in the phone business as part of its efforts to get the company out of losses. Negotiations pertaining to the job cuts are likely to be held towards the end of July in Finland. Considering the huge effort that is going into reducing expenses, it comes as no surprise that the company has decided to cut jobs and abort the new operating system project, according to analysts. In fact, according to one of the sources, all of whom wished to remain anonymous, had it not been for such moves to reduce expenses, phones running Meltemi would have already been in the market by now.
Currently, the Nokia Series 40 Symbian OS is the most widespread software on mobile phones as it powers over 2 billion devices. However, it lacks a lot of the advanced features that Android has and is going to lose its market share soon. Meltemi would have been what S40 never was and hence would have posed a stiff competition to Android because of the smartphone experience that it can offer. The key thing for Nokia now is to ensure that the prices of its Windows Phone range do not soar too high, which can convince its existing customers to buy them instead of jumping ship to Android or other devices.
