Nokia Introduces New Smartphone OS That Nobody Has Heard Of

Worldwide leader in cheap basic cell phones, Nokia is introducing a new operating system for their higher end smartphones that doesn't replace but complements Symbian their other smartphone operating system that very few have heard of.  MeeGo is being launched by Nokia on smartphones for the North American market.  Nokia executive Anssi Vanjoki wrote on a company blog that "There is no denying, that as a challenger now, we have a fight on our hands. The first battle is to bring you products and services you will want to own and use."

In the market dominated by iPhones, Blackberries and Android, Introducing another smartphone operating system is gamble at best.  Palm originally and now HP has had an uphill climb getting WebOS a foothold in the market.  Microsoft will have at best extreme difficulty getting Windows Phone 7 accepted by cellular carriers and consumers. 

For cell phone carriers even the giants like Verizon and AT&T supporting an OS with such a small market share would take a lot of resources that would be far from worthwhile to support MeeGo.  All isn't lost for Nokia though.  Regional carriers such as Metro PCS, Cricket, MTS and Sasktel have only had Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices that consumers view the smartphones offered by these regional carriers as outdated and lame.

Executives at Nokia have reisisted Windows Mobile and Android opting to put out their own operating systems on their smartphones.  For the North American market Nokia will have to get rid of this wanting to be their own product mentality, to get their smartphones available on a mainstream national carrier, Nokia will have to get onboard with an operating system that is accepted and supported by the mainstream national carriers.  With Google's Android handset makers and cellular carriers are making customizations that make their smartphones stand out from other smartphones running Android.  An example of this is Motorola's Motoblur which incorporates social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter, and backs up people's contacts to the cloud.  Nokia has picked the path less traveled, the path that only Nokia has traveled, to get to acceptance and success in the North American market maybe they should try the paved highway.