Jolla announced today that they'll be selling Sailfish OS to select smartphone users starting this year. The first device they've chosen to work with is quite likely the least popular top-name brand headliner smartphone of the year, the Sony Xperia X. To attain the new operating system, users need only to pay around 50-Euro - roughly $60 USD.
Jolla is not one to give up it seems, no matter how the odds are stacked against it. Now carrying nothing more than a dream long forgotten and a legacy long abandoned, the Finnish startup formed from Nokia’s failures are now seeking to place its Sailfish OS into people’s hands in a different way. It may, however, be leaning its ladder on the wrong wall by banking on putting the unfamiliar OS in a relatively hard to get smartphone: the Sony Xperia X.
Just because you’re a somewhat popular company that managed to successfully deliver a crowdfunded product doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to do it again. Not even if you rake in more than $2 million in funding. That’s the bitter reality that Jolla faced last year when it had to cancel its successfully funded Sailfish OS tablet. Some, however, still believe in that vision and have taken to Indiegogo to try and resuscitate the Jolla Tablet, now as the Youyota Tablet. And based simply on numbers, it seems there are still many who still believe in that dream too.
Jolla isn’t dead, or at least that’s the sentiment it’s trying to air at MWC 2017. The Finnish company, rising from the ashes of the old Nokia, may no longer be making and selling devices, but it’s also doing more than just licensing its Sailfish OS. At the world’s biggest mobile event, Jolla announced that it will be officially supporting Sony’s Xperia smartphones, at least those under its Open Devices Program, potentially expanding the number of Sailfish OS users in one go.
Smartwatches might no longer be the hot items they once were, if they truly were, but some seem to be unwilling to call it quits on the market. In fact, some are still just catching up to smartwatches. Whether it is Fitbit’s rumored plans to buy Pebble or the new generation of smartwatch platforms popping up here and there. The latest ambitious attempt at cornering at least the software market is Sailfish OS, the Linux-based platform from Jolla. Although the startup isn’t yet saying it will be coming out with a Sailfish OS smartwatch, it is proudly boasting that, at least on the software side, it can easily be done.
Things have been a little rough so far this year for Jolla, the Finnish startup behind the open-source Sailfish OS. First its tablet device was confirmed dead after a mere 540 units were shipped, and then it found itself in financial trouble before securing $12 million in funding. But now there's some good news for the future of Sailfish, which is that Russia has certified the OS for official use in both governments and corporations.
Jolla had a dream, to take succeed where Nokia failed in the smartphone industry after the latter's acquiescence to Microsoft. The software part was relatively easy. It already had the experience in Nokia's previous failed attempts at creating its own platform. Hardware, however, was probably more than it could chew, which it found out the very hard way. Jolla has practically given up on that and is focusing on software development and licensing instead. In that vein, it just secured $12 million in funding, which would eventually help the company continue refunding its disappointed, perhaps even disgruntled, customers.
Jolla's hardware plans may have crashed and burned, but the company's strategy of licensing its Sailfish OS has borne fruit here at Mobile World Congress. The first smartphone to run Sailfish 2.0 has been revealed, the handiwork of Indian phone maker Intex Technologies, dubbed the Aqua Fish.
Ultra-strong both in software and in materials. That was the promise that Turing Robotic Industries (TRI) made with its Turing Phone, which, a good number of pre-order buyers have indeed believed. That, however, was last year. The smartphone, which boasts of a "stronger than steel" liquid metal body, has already been delayed. And now it might be delayed even more. The company has informed early buyers that it has decided to switch from Android to Jolla's Sailfish OS, a rather dumbfounding move for a device that still needs to prove it can actually reach the market.
It almost seemed like a fairy tale, with Jolla successfully funding not one but two Jolla Tablet crowdfunding campaigns, raking in thousands of dollars in the process. After a more or less prestigious Jolla smartphone, there was very little doubt that the Finnish startup would be able to deliver. It seems that things were too good to be true, however, and now Jolla is officially confirming the writing on the wall. The Jolla Tablet dream is no more and only the remaining 540 units in stock will be shipped. The rest, instead, will get refunds.
Jolla is definitely starting the new year with a bang. At the end of 2015, narrowly missing Santa's naughty list, the Finnish startup took stock of their rather tumultuous year and of the challenges up ahead. But sandwiched in between retrospective and prophesy are words that Jolla fans have probably dreaded hearing for a few months now. Good news: some Jolla tablets will still be shipping out to backers who already "paid" for it via crowdfunding. Bad news: not everyone, even those who financially invested in it, will be getting the now mythical mobile device.
Jolla, the Finnish startup that rose from the ashes of Nokia's mobile dreams, may have once again beaten the odds. After near bankruptcy and after "temporarily" letting go of half of its workforce, Jolla has happily announced that it has received some much needed monetary infusion thanks to a delayed Series C funding round. But although the company can momentarily breathe a sigh of release, its battle is far from over, with its employment situation, tablet deliveries, and its business future in general still in question.
