And so, a day before I leave for Italy for my Summer vacation, we’ve got some… News about Jolla. The company just put out a press release, announcing a focus shift.
Jolla Ltd., the Finnish mobile company and developer of open mobile operating system Sailfish OS, today announced a change in its company structure and management as further action toward company’s strategy to focus on Sailfish OS licensing and development.
As of today, the company Jolla Ltd. will concentrate on the development and licensing business of the independent and open mobile operating system Sailfish OS. A new company will be established to continue Jolla’s device business, where the company sees a specific interest from privacy-aware consumers and corporations around the world.
The press release – of course – frames this as happy news, but years of experience in covering technology (or just years of not living under a rock, really) has taught me that moves like this are never borne out of desire, but out of necessity. Combined with several delays of Jolla’s tablet and of Sailfish 2.0, it’s hard not to conclude the company (companies?) is facing bleak times.
I haven’t exactly kept my displeasure with the slow pace of progress regarding Sailfish development a secret, and I’ve had worries about the company’s future for a long time now. The Jolla phone is now 19 months old, and it wasn’t exactly flagship-quality to begin with when it was first released in December 2013. While there’s been considerable updates to Sailfish 1.0, it, too, is now 19 months old. In addition, the promised support for paid applications never arrived.
One also has to wonder just how wise it was to focus on building a tablet. Tablets don’t get replaced very often, and they are a far smaller market than smartphones. In addition, adding a whole new form factor to support is surely to negatively affect the smartphone experience. Had the company instead focused on releasing a new phone, we might have had it sooner – no new form factor to develop – and we’d have a replacement for the under-performing original Jolla phone. Hindsight, though, right?
Regarding the tablet:
Jolla is committed to deliver the Jolla Tablet to its Indiegogo crowdfunding contributors and is working hard to start first shipments as soon as possible. “The software (Sailfish OS) part of the work is in good shape but we have been slowed down by supply issues of certain hardware components. We expect to solve this issue very soon,” Mr. Saarnio says.
I hope the company can stay afloat long enough to ensure we get our tablets (I ordered one within minutes of the announcement). Maybe things are not as bleak as I make them out to be here, but I’m not exactly getting the positive vibes.
I would highly recommend everyone that pre-ordered this hardware to cancel their order. It doesn’t seem wise to order hardware from a company that just announced they are getting out of the hardware business.
Their software seems to be okay, but if BlackBerry and Windows Phone and WebOS and all the others cannot make it in this market…just forget about Jolla/Sailfish
I don’t think we *can* cancel our orders. The orders were taken in the form of Indiegogo “donations.” IIRC, when I placed my order, I remember one of the terms was that I had to deal directly with the campaigner, in this case, Jolla, to get my money back, but because it’s a donation, they are not obligated to do so.
IMO, there are two things going on here:
1) Jolla is a horribly mismanaged company. In their four years of existence, they have released exactly *one* product, a phone with outdated specs and no US frequencies (I know, I paid an outrageous amount to be an early adopter).
2) Jolla has fallen for the Russian Bear, who wanted SailfishOS as their official mobile solution. In doing so, Jolla are selling out their loyal (but small) base for a potentially huge monetary contract. This doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility; their tablet was supposed to rely on GLONASS for position info, and IIRC the original phone required the Yandex store to be installed for you to have *any* Android support.
In either case, I’m extremely disappointed, but have moved on (I mean, it’s been over half a year) to another device. If/when my Jolla tablet ever arrives, it’s going directly to eBay.
And that didn’t raise a red flag for anyone ordering these?
That’s your loss, then. Your ebay deal will make somebody else happy.
The money “invested” is a sunk-cost right now. Selling would be a win-win, as I would be glad to have that money back, if possible, over a dead-end product.
Edited 2015-07-07 22:45 UTC
The codebase Jolla uses may have been already existing (like all Linux based OS’s, but it needed a lot of updating, refreshing and a new UI. Not to mention testing, certifications, hardware design, etc.
Sorry but OnePlus does not make their own OS, they use Cyanogen, which is based on android, which has thousands of developers maintaining and updating. Completely different than developing/maintaining an OS on your own (or, with the help of a few community developers too).
A more apt comparison would be Ubuntu Touch/Canonical. Even then, Canonical does not make hardware, and they have heaps more people working on the OS.
A focus shift is just that – getting focus for the realities of this broken industry.
As far as supply chain ‘mismanagement’ as you say. There are a lot of behind the scene issues you might not know about…
But why? You can return it.
Edited 2015-07-08 10:53 UTC
Jolla is not getting out of the hardware business, just splitting devices/hardware into a sub business.
Those were not pre-orders but investment pledges. You can’t cancel them.
Nokia started releasing the first devices with Maemo in Summer 2005. By then this was a very modern platform for tablets and eventually smartphones. Unfortunately due to political reasons they did no show any interest of getting Maemo to work on smartphones in the early years.
Then in 2008 when Nokia acquired Trolltech they just had a great path of building apps for Maemo and Series 60 on a common codebase. Unfortunately they did not leverage this.
With a proper and early shift away from S60 to Maemo Nokia could have stayed among the most influential mobile phone companies probably with a higher market share than Apple.
Yeah, this is more of the same. Its easier to design a new UI, than it is to produce stable working systems using that UI. Jolla/ old Nokia guys were great artists, that didn’t ship.
There was internal feedback those devices should get a GSM/UTMS modem, but it wasn’t what it was designed for according to the team.
Too much internal politics with Symbian team.
This news makes me very mad. I WANT a secure tablet that won’t spy on me constantly. I would rather have one that ran common open source apps. Why cant I get one?
Yeah. In regards to operating systems and freedoms and usage and control, it always amazes me just how much difference there is between desktops / notebooks and mobile phones / tablets, despite them both being “computers”.
I don’t understand the reason why people would just assume that because its not from Apple, Google, Blackberry, etc that the system secures privacy in any real way.
Thinking about this further: The only place the NSA is allowed to do crazy spy stuff is supposed to be *outside* the united states. So the assumption that software developed outside the US is safe from their influence is just crazy.
the error is assuming all spying/privacy matters are all about NSA.
On a platform controlled by Google, where data-collection is the norm.. Or a platform where “trust us we know best for you” is the norm, and on both platforms where OS/security controls are mostly out of the user’s hands, privacy and securyt aren’t the most assured thing – quite unlike open-source OSes.
Note that open-source is NOT a guarantee of superior privacy and security, though it is an enabler of such things, giving more control to the user.
And no, despite the existence of AOSP, Android itself as generally presented and used, is not pure open-source, and is a vehicle for Google’s services…
It’s a trade-off/compromise we are forced to make, due to the absence of viable alternatives.
Edited 2015-07-08 07:15 UTC
Bill,
I make no assumption, there was only hope. I want a Linux device that I can use to consume media and maybe have a few tools on. I don’t think I am asking for much.
No offense, but what is it you see in Sailfish that isn’t present in Android (whether that be a OEM or third party rom)? Is it Wayland support?
I for one see true multitasking and maybe a UI that doesn’t behave like it’s a giant hack kept together with magic glue.
I’m so freaking sick of seeing my browser restart from scratch and reload all its tabs – or just the single open tab, if there happens to be just one – on my quad core Lollipop tablet with 2 GB RAM as soon as I open another app and then switch back to the browser. Or my PDF reader going back to page one when I switch back.
It might be a very aggressive battery saving policy from the manufacturer, but it really annoys the hell out of me.
Don’t even get me started on how every Android device I’ve tried gets laggy after some use. Then a reboot seems to fix it for some hours, then it’s the same story again.
The keyboard’s always some letters behind.
No, I cannot stand Android UX.
Most apps (except the browsers) on my 3-year-old, Symbian Belle-powered Nokia 808 behave more fluidly than apps with similar function on Android. Sure, they’re not faster, but transitions are smooth and a pleasure to the eye.
That would be enough for me to love the idea of an open OS (as in “not constraining me inside a walled garden”) for mobile devices. Without even talking about security.
Edited 2015-07-08 15:52 UTC
Well, for starters:
SailFish at least promotes privacy. again, that remains to be seen but better than other platforms so far
They are creating a more open platform from what I have seen
dumping Java and going with Qt
If that’s all you care about Android in some form meets it. I get it if you don’t like Android, but not liking android doesn’t make an alternative platform better. It has to stand on its own positive merits. I guess I was just hoping for enlightenment as to what those merits were. If it was just what you listed in the previous post, I’m really confused why anyone would choose Sailfish, other than from a UX perspective.
Edited 2015-07-09 13:39 UTC
Ok, I’ve got slightly more complicate needs. Let’s see.
I care for a mobile OS where
– common use apps don’t expect to use my microphone, camera, email, contacts, position;
(I know, I can choose not to install an application asking for too many permissions – I’d like a system promoting apps coded with an aim different from stealing user data)
– or at least I can choose which permissions apply to each app without the interface for doing so being added then pulled again at every second release
– multitasking UI is done right – the “card” UI in Lollipop is nice visuals, but I don’t think there’s anything rational to the purpose of multitasking in having the most recent app – the one you’re switching from – cover most of the others.
Or in having to find an on-screen button to activate the feature. That is unnatural and breaks the flow.
Not that the pre-5.0 UI made a lot of sense on tablets. A complete waste of screen real estate.
– multitasking itself is done right. No resuming waits, no reloading of tabs, videos playing in the background without needing hacks, and so on.
– I’m going to assume the Sony keyboard – not Android itself – is responsible for constantly missed keypresses and an infuriating lag on my tablet. If that’s not the case, you already know my complaints.
So, you see, unless heavily modified, Android is not for me.
You and me both. So an OS with fewer eyes looking at the code is somehow more secure than ones with way more developer attention? Nonsense.
As a former “the first one” and future tablet owner, I only hope that blackberry don’t fsck the Venice.
After the “speaker mis connection problem” and the “battery reboot bug” I’m feed up.
Sounds remarkably like the split of PalmSource and PalmOne. The idea was to seperate the hardware from the licensing of the software (more Google/Android than Apple/iOS).
Sadly the reality is, if you cant compete as a company with a device available on the open market, how do you hope to compete without one…
It looks like there is something going behind the scene. As it stands right now, Jolla has no real benefits from separating its hardware business, as the only software provider for Jolla hardware is Jolla software and vice versa.
It is possible that they have found a hardware vendor willing to release a SailfishOS-based phone. Such vendor may see Jolla’s hardware business as competition to itself, and may require splitting it off for this reason.
It is also possible that they are prepairing to sell their software or hardware business. Given their history, they may hope to sell themselves back to Nokia, although I am not sure that Nokia would be interested in buying any part of Jolla…
Anyway, it looks like there is too little information available to make an educated guess about this move.
Or they see the hardware business going down the drain and don’t want to take down the rest of the company.
“Licensing”.
Licensing Sailfish OS to device manufacturers is fine (if a slightly hopeless business model as they can get Android and WP for “free”).
Licensing patents? Please don’t turn NPE on us.
Next step seems to be an acquisition, IMHO. Potential takeovers probably weren’t happy with one of the two expenditures (hardware or software). And wanted only one of the two parts. I’m guessing Nokia wanted the hardware design group back after the probationary period specified in the MS sale expired. Sailfish will slip silently into the night, but we’ll have Nokia Android phones.
Just the other day there was the article how little money most developers do on the app stores of the top platforms.
Yet, here there was a company with almost no market penetration trying to lure developers away from iOS, Android and WP.
No compelling monetization model nor SDK quality level comparable with the top platforms, so why bother?!?
Apparently their note on why the tablets were delayed were due to the screen on the tablet had some issues so they went with different one.
This is exactly true. There were problems with old screen/design. It was incapable of delivering a quality visual experience.
You wouldn’t want a tablet with the old screen/design.
Could you be more specific? You seem to be regurgitating what was said in the blogs back in April. What was wrong with the display? Was it non-IPS? Did it have a poor refresh rate? Did it have excessive burn-in, or a lousy touch response? What did Jolla find in their displays that the media didn’t find when the tablet won best of CES?
There is no market for a third OS. If Microsoft, with their clout and billions of dollars that they can sink into an alternative OS, and which they now license completely free, and provide money to manufacturers to use, can’t crack the market, then on one can. Samsung also tried, and failed, with Tizen.
Jolla was on a hiding to nothing, regardless of what “geeks” on the internet thought about the virtues of their OS.
An OS with paltry third party support, and no industry muscle behind it was not going to succeed. It might even have been the best ever mobile OS in the world, bug and NSA free, but without apps, no one would buy it.
HP failed with WebOS. Heck, Palm shipped phones that actually sold in decent numbers, and still failed with WebOS, back when no platform had 1m apps.
As I said only a week or so ago:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?612933
Even Finns thought Jolla was living on borrowed time.
Be, Inc anyone? that’s the first thing i think of when a struggling tech company announces a “focus shift”
Under it^aEURTMs deal with Microsoft, Nokia was prohibited from licensing its brand for phones until next year (2016).
Maybe the split from the JollaOS was a requirement for licensing back the designs to the hardware division. Thereby allowing them to make an Android Nokia phone.
Microsoft are allegedly cutting the hardware division back to the bone. So there will be some talented people around soon for JollaHardware to pick up and return to the fold…
To be clear, I DONT think Nokia will want to buy JollaHardware themselves. Much better to design the phones and let someone else manage the hardware and production lines.
A startup in the phone bizz: yeah sure, dream on …
A complete waste of time and energy.
Edited 2015-07-09 08:30 UTC