A few former Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) employees, who left the company last year over the Finnish tech company’s decision to drop the MeeGo operating systems for Windows, are teaming up for a new project.
The group of five [four are from Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V)] have a company called Jolla, and they introduced a new operating system called Sailfish.
Antti Saarnio says they will introduce “the world’s best smartphone” sometime in the middle of 2013. Unfortunately, the company has no plans as of yet to bring their phones to the United States. Instead, Jolla has their eyes set on the markets in China, Europe, and North Africa.
Jolla is currently growing. The company currently has a total of fifty employees, but they are hiring more every month.
Saarnio recently explained to AFP, “Jolla’s own phone will be a high-end premium product. He added, “Because this is the most dynamic market at the moment in the smartphone industry and the industry there is looking for different alternatives to make smartphones. Most of our team was at that time working in the MeeGo unit and we were so passionate about MeeGo and felt it was so competitive that we wanted to continue the development and start a company.”
Investors and companies have some faith in the new project. Jolla has earned over 10 million in euros from investors, but Saarnio says they will need to raise 20 million euros next spring to help the company grow further.
Right now we don’t have too many details regarding the device, but Jolla does plan to reveal the details and the physical design of the phone sometime next year.
It’s nice to know there will be another smartphone on the market in the near future, however it’s also predictable. There are many companies that have launched mobile products, but most cannot compare to Apple and Google products. Hopefully, Jolla will prove to be successful.
