Russia has constantly been in the news for several months now, whether for good reasons or bad reasons, that’s up to you to device. The country is said to be partnering with Finnish company, Jolla to launch its own Mobile OS.
There is no final name for the Mobile OS, but sources believe that the ‘Independent OS’ would be built by Russian specialists and would be based on the Jolla Sailfish OS which runs on its Jolla Phone and Jolla Tablet. Representatives from Jolla have already met up with their Russian counterparts to discuss this move, there is however no timeframe for the release date.
Jolla shares so many things with Nokia; both companies are from Finland; the employees that make the core of Jolla are from Nokia and Jolla’s Open Source Sailfish OS is built around Nokia’s Meego OS which the company decided to abandon for Microsoft owned Windows Phone.
By 2025, Russia is looking to drive down the rate of penetration of American owned Operating Systems to drop below the 50% mark. Android currently owns the Russian market accounting for around 81%, while iOS follows at second position with around %15. BlackBerry OS, Windows Phone are part of the remaining 4% but have more market share than the 0.5% which Jolla OS has.
Now that’s not surprising considering the country is in logger heads with the West over some national disputes; and the country is looking to reduce its dependence on the West (America) for everything including softwares, applications, OS, amongst others.
Earlier this year, the Russian Minister of communication, Nikolai Nikiforov expressed his admiration for Jolla’s Sailfish OS and Samsung’s Tizen OS which he acknowledge for their open-source format. Android OS and iOS are both owned by companies from the USA (Google and Apple); this shows Russia is shifting it’s interest to any product as long as it’s not from the USA; how about Finland?
Source: The Guardian
