Before we get to today’s news, you need some backstory: Nokia started work on a Linux based mobile operating system called Maemo back in 2005. It got better over time, just have a look at the Nokia N9 to get an idea of what we’re talking about. Now Maemo wasn’t the only Linux mobile OS on the market trying to become successful, there was Intel’s Moblin platform, which the chip company was attempting to get laptop makers to use. Nokia teamed up with Intel, merged Moblin and Maemo, and called the resulting love child MeeGo. Stephen Elop then decided that Nokia should go with Windows Phone instead of MeeGo, so Nokia broke up with Intel. Samsung took Nokia’s place and renamed the project Tizen. Got it? Good.
Sprint is announcing that they’re joining the Tizen project. They’re not the first operator to do so either, they’ll be holding hands with NTT DOCOMO, Orange, SK telecom, Telefónica, and Vodafone. Why are operators backing an open source software platform? Because they want to create some competition in the market by giving birth to an OS that isn’t loaded to the gills with another company’s services, à la Android. Vodafone has already failed to get Vodafone 360 off the ground, so why not try again?
Look, everyone knows operators don’t innovate when it comes to hardware or services. They buy spectrum from the government, they buy infrastructure equipment from companies like Huawei and Ericsson, and then they nickel and dime customers to death with roaming charges, obscene text message rates, and data buckets. Will Tizen get anywhere now that Sprint of all people is contributing to the project? Nope, and it’s going to be a waste of money that could have otherwise been spent paying an engineer to climb up a cell tower and put a more advanced antenna on top.
[Via: Phone Scoop]