MWC: Nokia, Intel go after a MIDs, tablets with new OS

BARCLEONA -- If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Nokia (NYSE:NOK) today were gushing over Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) as they prepared to take on the Internet giant at its own game. The chipmaker and handset vendor today announced their own open-source Linux-based operating system for mobile Internet devices, targeting the same netbook and tablet market Google is eyeing for its Chrome operating system.

Though new, the Intel-Nokia OS, MeeGo, is essentially a merger of Intel’s Moblin software and the Maemo architecture developed by Nokia acquisition Trolltech, and both companies stressed that developers on both platforms will be able seamlessly transfer their work into MeeGo, but it will use the Trolltech-built Qt application development environment. At media conference at Mobile World Congress today, Nokia and Intel said their aim is to create a hardware platform independent operating system which will move beyond netbooks and smartphones and encourage the creation of new categories of mobile data devices.

“We allow for differentiation,” said Kai Öistämö, Nokia executive vice president of devices. “We are not going to favor any particular hardware architecture.”

The implication is that MeeGo will be available to any device vendor and it will work on silicon platforms other than Intel’s X86 architecture, over which its new Atom mobile device platform is built as well as its PC processor. But it also appears Intel and Nokia will remain critically involved in its distribution. For Nokia devices running MeeGo, Nokia’s Ovi application portal will be the primary application storefront, and for non-Nokia devices using an Intel-based chip architecture, Intel’s AppUpSM Center will be the principle software distribution portal. It’s not quite clear how the application store would be handled for a device not built by Nokia and without an Intel processor.

Nokia has taken almost the exact same approach with its smartphones, opening up and freely licensing the Symbian platform in an effort to encourage a larger device ecosystem. Nokia, however, remains the largest maker of Symbian devices. By bringing Intel into the fold, Nokia may increase the appeal of the operating system, but it may still face the skepticism from other device makers. Google has taken basically the same approach to its Android and Chrome OSes, but until the release of the Nexus 1, Google’s principle interest in the OS is in the software and services, not in building the devices themselves.

Google’s Chrome may not be in the market yet, but devices like the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad have begun emerging that target the same in-between device market. Many analysts believe, though, that Android won’t merely be limited to smartphones. It could scale the popular Android OS for the tablet and mobile computer form factors that Nokia is already attacking with is N800 and N900 series devices (Öistämö said that the N900 would be the perfect candidate for the MeeGo OS).

Öistämö, however, said Nokia and Intel have an advantage with Qt in countering the increasing fragmentation in the mobile OS market. Used as a Linux development environment in everything from mobile devices to oil exploration, Qt will allow developers to build an app once and deploy it across any manner of open source platforms, even non-Linux-based ones. For instance, an app developed in Qt for MeeGo can also run on a Symbian smartphone, he said.