No one ever really believed that MeeGo would be capable of seriously competing against popular mobile operating systems like Android, iOS, BlackBerry and perhaps even Windows Phone 7.
However, Berenberg Bank analyst Adnaan Ahmad has gone a step further, terming MeeGo the “biggest joke in the tech industry.”
“Announce an exclusive deal with your ex-colleague [at Microsoft]. You get access to their Windows Phone 7 (WP7) intellectual property scot-free and access to the US market where your share has dived to the low single-digit level,” Ahmad suggested in an open letter to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop obtained by AllThingsD.
“Get rid of your own proprietary high-end solution (MeeGo) – [because] it’s the biggest joke in the tech industry right now and will put you even further behind Apple and Google.”
According to Ahmad, Nokia should focus its high-end portfolio efforts around WP7, allowing the company to lower costs over time to mid-range price points.
“Push your Symbian solutions into the low-to-mid-range smartphone market as quickly as possible to defend market share versus Android’s upcoming lowered cost ecosystem,” he added.
All good advice to be sure, but it begs the question as to why Nokia embraced the rather nascent operating system instead of focusing on improving its declining Symbian platform or *gasp*, consider adopting an Android-based model for the future.
In any case, I think Ahmad’s analysis may be a bit harsh.
Sure, MeeGo is unlikely to eke out a sizable share in the smartphone and tablet markets (at least, anytime soon), but it could theoretically make significant inroads in other spaces, such as in-vehicle infotainment, SmartTV / ConnectedTV, IPTV-boxes and other embedded systems.
