Introduction to the MeeGo Software Platform

The MeeGo open-source project is unique in that it offers benefits to everyone in the ecosystem, starting from the developer all the way up to the operator and the industry as a whole. MeeGo allows participants to get involved and contribute to an industry-wide evolution toward richer devices to address opportunities rapidly and to focus on differentiation in their target markets.

As mentioned previously, the MeeGo Project is a true open-source project hosted by the Linux Foundation and governed by best practices of open-source development. From MeeGo.com, as an open-source developer, you have access to tools, mailing lists and a discussion forum. You also have accessibility to technical meetings and multiple options for making your voice heard in technical and nontechnical MeeGo-related topics. Furthermore, all source code contributions needed for MeeGo will be submitted to the upstream open-source projects from which MeeGo will be built (Figure 3).

Figure 3. MeeGo and Upstream Projects

As an application developer, MeeGo significantly expands your market opportunities, as it is the only open-source software platform that supports deployments across many computing device types. MeeGo offers Qt and Web runtime for application development and cross-platform environments, so application developers can write their applications once and deploy easily on many types of MeeGo devices or even on other platforms supporting the same development environment. Furthermore, MeeGo will offer a complete set of tools for developers to create a variety of innovative applications easily and rapidly (see meego.com/developers/getting-started). The major advantage from this approach (Figure 4) is having a single set of APIs across client devices. In addition, in this context, “multiple devices” means much more than just multiple types of handsets, for instance. MeeGo device types include media phones, handhelds, IVI systems, connected TVs and Netbooks.

Figure 4. MeeGo Apps Available from Multiple App Stores for a Wide Range of Device Types

In addition, MeeGo application developers will have the opportunity to make their applications available from multiple application stores, such as Nokia's Ovi Store (https://store.ovi.com) and Intel's AppUp Center (www.intel.com/consumer/products/appup.htm). Also, there is the opportunity to host the applications on other app stores for specific carriers offering MeeGo devices as part of their device portfolios. These MeeGo capabilities and cross-device and cross-platform development are major differentiators and offer huge benefits to application developers.

MeeGo helps accelerate time to market using an off-the-shelf, open-source and optimized software stack targeted for the specific hardware architecture the device manufacturer is supporting. From a device manufacturer perspective, MeeGo lowers complexities involved in targeting multiple device segments by allowing the use of the same software platform for different client devices. In addition, as an open-source project, MeeGo enables device manufacturers to participate in the evolution of the software platform and build their own assets for it through the open development model.

MeeGo enables differentiation through user interface customization. Although many devices can be running the same base software platform, they all can have different user experiences. Furthermore, it provides a single platform for a multitude of devices, minimizing the efforts needed by the operators/carriers in training their teams, which allows their subscribers to be familiar with the experience common to many device types.