Intel-Google love-in leaves MeeGo going nowhere

Intel has jumped into bed with Google, but the palpable excitement emanating from both companies seems incongruous - as it signals doom for the chip giant's child from its previous marriage of convenience, MeeGo. It was only nineteen months ago that Intel and Nokia announced they were combining their respective Linux platforms …

[Anonymous Coward]

Go Android, Intel...

Sad to see the little orphan drifting downstream.

Meego was never going to make it unless Intel were prepared to take on the securitisation of the OS. To extend the analogy, the prospect of college fees proved too much for the rich uncle. Perhaps this is because Intel would be robbing revenue from its new acquisition, McAfee. The truth is the anti-virus companies are essentially turd-polishers, and this will not do for neither mobile nor automotive - waiting for inevitable exploits and shutting the stable door.

Google are in a much better position to offer real security,they are ahead of the game because they can monitor the channels, build blacklists, set up alarm triggers etc. Basically they can own the problem.

In return, the combination of Intel and Google should be able, between them, to fight off the patent warfare and guarantee the long-term viability of Android.

So, lets hope for some secure-booting silicon from Intel and a secure, self-maintaining infrastructure from Google. Oh, and between them, a major adversary to the ridiculous patent trolling that may yet crush our information age.

[Dan 55]

See Android Store malware

Do Google offer real security?

[Gordon 10]

Shouldn't that be does google offer ANY security?

[Muhammad Imran]

Two orphans to get rid of ... MeeGo and $7.7-bn McAfee

when people were just not getting out of narrow thinking that McAfee was for intel cpus. I revealed that McAfee is for MeeGo cuz most viruses are x86 native, Android though x86 comaptible is running only on intel-TV x86 hardware. so MeeGo if ran on x86-Atom smartphones.. x86-viruses will bleed it like a slaughtered pig. Now intel has two products to get rid of ... MeeGo and $7.7-bn McAfee :)

Muhammad Imran/mi1400

[Anonymous Coward]

Meewhat?

Unfortunately, and probably unfairly, MeeGo was always a non-name among your average punters. No more profile-starved I guess than any other *nix distro, yet I'd still wager that most capable of choosing their own OS would inevitably be reaching for the Ubuntu stick anyway, wouldn't they?

Asus are soon to launch the X101 in the UK featuring...uh....MeeGo. I wonder now how many 'Go on then, I'll try it' types will now buy one with the express intention of shoving their own distro on from the get-go?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a does of reality....

Intel is big enough that it can still back Meego in the background.

After all, what happens if Larry & Larry can't agree on a settlement?

[petur]

I see platforms with MeeGo drift by from time to time at work, it certainly is being deployed, just not as visible and as such most commentards and the author of the article are totally unaware of it.

Namely, the place where the origin of MeeGo was (Moblin), in-car entertainment and navigation systems.

Some big name car brands are using it but you'll never know

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Meego do that other embedded Linuxes (etc) don't?

Genuine question.

A massive proportion of routers, TVs, basically any smart consumer electronics, already has a Linux in it. These folks don't advertise which Linux it is either. Why does the automotive world need Meego as well as all the other available OSes, especially given that the systems you mention are not systems where safety and certifiability matter.

And what does it do that (say) QNX from the Blackberry folks or even something from Intel's very own Wind River Systems (VxWorks or WRS Linux) doesn't?

If these questions are answered elsewhere, please point.

I mean, you can never have too many Linuxes, can you....

[Mikel]

Not a commitment

At best a second date.

And that's OK. When tech giants pair off it's the rest of us that get no love.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think

Meego was going nowhere all by itself already without any help from Google and Intel.

What problems does it solve that make it necessary?

[John Styles]

Meegoing... going...

Wasn't it Larry Ellison who said (in another context), 'you can't get deader than dead'?

[Lars]

Intel will support anything helping them to sell more processors on any possible device.

Why would they not support Android. Originally, I suppose, they hoped Nokia would start selling

a lot of Meego phones.

Pre orders for the Nokia N9 are accepted now, in Finland, at Saunalahti. Delivered in October.

And also in Norway by Telenor.

It could very well be the best smart phone there is to day, but will Nokia seriously support it in the

future, Mr Elop.

[Goat Jam]

Nokia Phones + Meego

"Originally, I suppose, they hoped Nokia would start selling a lot of Meego phones."

I never quite understood what value intel expected this partnership to provide them.

I can't imagine Nokia were ever going to build an x86 phone, unless they were planning on some sort of nostalgia fueled late eighties brick phone revival or something.

[Hubert Thrunge Jr.]

Nowhere?

As has been pointed out by many - Intel are looking to bolster their business by getting into bed with anyone who will help sell their chips.

MeeGo (Phone) is still being developed as a phone platform at a rapid pace, not quite as rapid as it would have done if Elop hadn't been put in charge of destroying Nokia.

There are still other forks of development of MeeGo - including Automotive (and other embedded systems), Tablet, Netbook, etc.. it's far from dead.

Is the author on the payroll of Cupertino or Redmond perhaps?

If the MeeGo OS developers threw money at marketing like Apple do, then MeeGo would be big bold and everyone would have to have it.