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Ari Jaaksi, Head of MeeGo Devices at Nokia, is leaving the company too

Categories: MeeGo, Nokia
By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 at 5:14 AM
ARI

Ari Jaaksi, Head of MeeGo Devices, today became the third high level employee to announce that he’s leaving Nokia. The first was former CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who was replaced by former Microsoft Executive Stephen Elop. The second was Anssi Vanjoki, who in his straight shooting style said the reason he’s leaving is because Nokia’s Board of Directors didn’t select him to be the next CEO. Now we have Ari, who oversaw the transition of Nokia’s Maemo operating system to the hodgepodge of open source software known as MeeGo. His boss was Alberto Torres, the man who fixed Nokia’s Vertu business and even held a stint at Apple and IBM.

How will Ari’s departure affect the shipment date of Nokia’s next MeeGo device? Probably not very much at all. The Finnish firm has a habit of designing projects well in advance and just marching forward until it’s complete, whether that project is good or bad; “stay the course” is the best way I can put it. How will it affect morale within the MeeGo team? They’re probably thrilled at their new boy Peter Skillman, the guy who helped put together Palm’s webOS, which failed to get any traction because the hardware was frankly a bit shoddy and the launch partners invested nickels and dimes into marketing the 3rd alternative to the iPhone/Android smartphone dual.

Will we see the next MeeGo device this year? Nokia promises that, but they also promised the N8 would ship in Q3. And it did. On the very last freaking day of the quarter. Can Nokia take some pictures of several Chinese employees loading crates onto an airplane and say on December 29th that the next generation of mobile computing is shipping to customers? Probably. Don’t expect anything until early February. If that.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • vasra

    Nokia will not ship MeeGo device in 2010. They will announce it.

    That’s a guarantee.

    Or if they ship it in 2010, it’ll be a total unfinished and unmitigated disaster.

  • http://the-reviewer.com TheReviewer

    LOL. Well said.

    Stephen Elop, ex-president of MS’ Business division, and Peter Skillman, ex-VP of design at Palm, joined Nokia. I guess Nokia is stealing talents “massively”?

  • Nokia_fan_boy

    nokia’s n8 is slow by todays standards.. why did they release such a laggy device… it doesnt look very good either…nokia please make some fast phones that look attractive..