Nokia Kills First MeeGo Phone, Windows/Android Phone Now Certain

So MeeGo is dead. That's the only conclusion if this Reuters bulletin proves accurate. Two industry sources "close to" Nokia have claimed that the company decided to axe the first MeeGo smartphone. This is backed up by separate rumors of Nokia putting MeeGo on life support and eyeing other, external platforms.

Windows Phone 7 and Android have both been tipped at varying points. Nokia has a long tradition of building only for internally designed platforms. The very prominent Nokia "feel" is one of the things that propelled the company to global dominance. At their height, the Finnish phone-maker controlled about 40% of the global smartphone market.

But that number hovers at around 30% now, with sharp declines in just the last quarter. The N900 was a flop, as far as giving Nokia a foothold in the crucial North American smartphone market. The company is even considering creating a Silicon Valley office to act as their new command center. This is not a good time for the Old Guard at Nokia- there are firings aplenty and a great wave of change on the horizon.

MeeGo was just one more tumor for CEO Stephen Elop's razor-sharp scalpel to excise. Nokia can't afford the time it will take for the open-source OS to mature into a polished platform with a healthy app ecosystem. Android offers a ripe, fertile platform to build devices for. Windows Phone 7 is young, but very polished and surprisingly well-apped.

My guess is that Nokia will go for WP7- at least first. Microsoft's OS is very young, and it still hasn't sold any number worth bragging about. But the app situation is already taken care of, which means Nokia just has to deliver devices. They have a chance here to be the "breakout" manufacturer for the next big platform. Like Motorola was for Android.

That isn't quite as good as "King of the Mountain", but it's a damn sight better than "dead".

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