ex-Nokia employees are looking to build a smartphone based on Nokia’s former MeeGo operating system.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

ex-Nokia employees are looking to build a smartphone based on Nokia’s former MeeGo operating system.

A Finnish start-up founded by a team of ex-Nokia employees are looking to build a smartphone based on Nokia’s former MeeGo operating system.

Jolla Ltd says it is in talks with hardware manufacturers and chipset suppliers with a plan to launch a MeeGo phone within the next six months.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, CEO Jussi Hurmola said the start-up needed to raise about EUR10 million from private investors to develop the smartphone – and would need to sell 50,000 to 100,000 to break even.

"We are seriously making a smartphone here, but we definitely can't do it alone," said Hurmola, who worked on MeeGo during his 12 years at Nokia.

Nokia launched the open-source MeeGo OS in partnership with Intel in 2010, but it was largely abandoned last year when Nokia adopted Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform for its smartphones. MeeGo's assets were subsequently transferred to the Linux Foundation.

MeeGo was used in only one commercial Nokia smartphone, the N9, which was well-regarded but suffered from Nokia’s withdrawal of support for the platform.

"There seems to be a sizable number of MeeGo enthusiasts," said Hurmola. "With all the respect to [Apple's mobile operating system] and Android, I'm quite sure that the market is ready for something new. As I see it, there are user segments that have been left unserved."