MeeGo Limbo

Several people have asked me to put my thoughts down on Nokia’s new partnership with Microsoft.  Twitter just isn’t the place for it; several 140-characters-or-less postings were met with responses quite distant from where I was going.  I’ll try to say something useful and coherent– but keep in mind this will be an opinion piece.  Very personal.  And lengthy.

To understand my take on things you need to understand where I come from.  Six years ago I was perfectly happy without a cell phone.  I had no need for one, even despised and sometimes pitied people enslaved to them.  And smartphones?  I dismissed the idea entirely.  What would I do with a “computer in my palm”?  How smart could a phone be?  

Marketing MeeGo: Introduction

One of the biggest challenges facing the MeeGo venture will be creating tangible interest around its (eventual) offerings.  iOS and
Android enjoy the buzz right now, the latter now benefiting more than the former.  At some point MeeGo as a product (or family of products) needs to establish the same sort of excitement if it is to seize significant market share.

It’s only natural to assume that any corporate entity utilizing MeeGo in some manner would craft unique marketing campaigns for their implementations.  But grassroots or community-led marketing is something else entirely.  

Why MeeGo?

There was a time when cell phone operating system Symbian was on a roll. Utilized by numerous device providers and championed by global giant Nokia, it provided the basis for a smartphone revolution.  And appeared unstoppable.

But Symbian had its roots in traditional user experience, and its proponents seemed surprisingly blindsided by the explosive growth of touch devices in the late 2000s.  With its laser focus on the trend-setting demographic, Apple managed to quickly lay waste to the cell phone status quo with its now-iconic touchscreen iPhone.  A victim of its own success, Symbian has since struggled to find its way and shows signs of having peaked in global share.  

Developing the MeeGo community

A great deal of useful conversation during Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2010 (LFCS2010) earlier this year revolved around what a MeeGo community should look like.  There are of course numerous aspects to this but for now I want to focus on three only: what sort of constituency would best benefit MeeGo, how could the website structure reflect, support and encourage that constituency, and what might this mean for maemo.org.

It might be helpful for the reader to browse through threads under Community Matters at the MeeGo discussion forum, as I will be referring to points raised there.  However, that won’t be necessary for a high-level perspective.  Regardless, a community is actually taking shape so I think it’s time to discuss a few subjects. 

What MeeGo can learn from Microsoft

I realize I’m courting controversy with the title, but for good reason.  I’m going to set aside any unsavory or otherwise questionable aspects of Microsoft business practices to focus on one that has worked very well for them and I believe can for MeeGo as well:

Developer outreach.

I’ve made it clear with this blog that the bulk of my information management and software development experience evolved in Microsoft business environments.  That naturally led to heavy involvement in Microsoft’s developer community, which included local and regional product launch and outreach events.

It’s no secret that Microsoft loves developers.  MSDN, Technet and the Microsoft Partner Network are successful examples of the company’s long romance with coders.

And one thing Microsoft does know how to do is throw a party.  I remember vividly the roaring 90s, when thousands of people packed the streets of downtown Dallas, Texas for the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 launch, each clutching free disks loaded not just with that cool new operating system but with fullblown Office as well.  And even when things slowed down after the 2000 tech bubble bust the parties continued, just a little smaller.  Great food, cool prize drawings, handouts of expensive software.  Oh, and key presentations too.

MeeGo and Pandora: a nice match?

maemo.org members have been long interested in the open Linux device project Pandora, both seriously and in lovingly jesting fashion.

Now some are asking if MeeGo might look good sitting on a Pandora device, and I have to admit the thought is intriguing.  There shouldn’t be any insurmountable technical hurdles, and each open project could reinforce the legitimacy of the other.

But why not take that a step further?

Qt | Podcasting + conferencing + Twitter

A handful of people with ties to the maemo.org community have been kicking around the idea of a new podcast.  I’m not going to go too deeply into the proposed format at this time but rather will present the technical wishes discussed so far and solicit input from the readers on how to address them.

Interested?  Read on!