Nokia Maemo only a side-project, to continue focus on Symbian

It may be no iPhone killer, but knowing India’s love for all things Symbian, we have chronicled rumours, launch dates, and specs for the the RX-51 internet tablet, aka Nokia N900 that runs on the Linux Maemo platform. As a wire story tells us, this is going to be a trend of one, with only one new Maemo based phone being released each year. Nokia will stay “fully committed to Symbian”, and will try to upgrade the operating system to bring it up to level with its competitors in the next year and a half.

If this is true, then the GSM Nokia N920, featuring a 4.2-inch capacitive touch screen powered by a 600MHz ARM Cortex processor and 32 GB of storage will be the only Maemo phone to be released in 2010.

“Nokia plans to install Linux software on just one new smartphone next year, a source told Reuters on Monday, dampening prospects of a quick makeover of the Finnish group's struggling product line-up.”

For smart phones, the Symbian OS is considered regarded as a laggard, and even Nokia’s must hyped flagship release the N97 got poor reviews for its scant app support, stylus-based resistive touchscreen.

When it comes to comparing the Android, iPhone and Ovi app ecosystems, the iPhone is many years ahead of its compeititors. A few key killer apps released recently might reverse that sentiment. Nokia promises full integration of Qt technology in 2010, which helps developers port versions of the apps automatically to Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Maemo 6.
According to a recent news release from Nokia, “Since May 2009, Nokia has received over 400 contributions into Qt and Qt-related projects, which has helped ensure that Qt remains a stable, robust framework for developers to innovate on.”