After literally abandoning Symbian and the much loved MeeGo in favor of Windows Phone 7, looks like Nokia’s bread and butter S40 series might be axed too in the not too distant future. No, we are not in the mood to spread any unwarranted rumors but the news is that Nokia is developing a new operating system that it intends to put on the feature phones that the company will manufacture in the coming years.
The new OS apparently known as “Meltemi”, which in Greek translates to dry summer winds will be based on Linux. The Wall Street Journal reports that Nokia’s Executive Vice president for the mobile phone division, Mary McDowell is leading this project.
As of now, it is unclear if the arrival of the Meltemi will mean the demise of the S40 platform. With as much as 47% of the phones sold by Nokia belonging to the low end, affordable bracket, the company is absolutely sure about the fact that there definitely is a market for this OS. That said, smartphones are increasingly taking over the market leading to the gradual demise of the feature phones segment. This however is rapidly happening only in the developed economies.
Countries like India and China still have some way to go before smartphones become affordable for the masses – and incidentally these two countries have a combined market of over 2 billion people. Not something that Nokia can afford to ignore!
