As the launch of any new platform tends to do, MeeGo’s debut on the Nokia N9 last week sparked a glimmer of hope. Nokia has never been the best at making software that’s as pretty as it is powerful — but with MeeGo’s fancy animations and surprisingly well thought out UI, we walked away pleasantly surprised on almost all fronts.
Maybe, just maybe, we figured, Nokia might find a way to keep MeeGo around, even as they fleshed out their new-found allegiance to Windows Phone 7. Maybe if it proved popular enough?
Not gonna happen, says CEO Stephen Elop.
In an interview with the Helsingin Sanomat (as noted by MTV3 Finland), Elop put it quite clearly: even if the N9 is a success, it’ll be Nokia’s only MeeGo phone. Well, technically, their only consumer-facing MeeGo phone, as they’ve got a second MeeGo phone meant only for developers.. but we get their gist.
It makes sense, of course; as much of a bummer as it is to see a nascent platform abandoned in its early state by one of its parents (it still has Intel and the Linux Foundation standing behind it), Nokia had to choose one or the other. Supporting one platform in the smartphone wars is tough enough. Supporting two would be insanity.
