Of the technology trends showing remarkable resistence to change, naming multibillion-dollar institutions with baby-talk words is among the most curious. Yahoo! is more fun to say than is International Business Machines.
We've already passed through a diaper reference (Napster), dozens of monsters (the actual Monster.com and a host of –zillas), and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), which may be a concept from math (misspelled) but sounds like baby drool. We are -- and by we I speak, with all due modesty, for all humanity -- only somewhat past this. The various jokes about how to conjugate "tweet" (subjunctive: twelt) suggest we only put up with the word "Twitter" because the service is really useful. By comparison, Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) appears to be a masterpiece of intentional blandness.
With that in mind, it's notable how deeply sober minds at soberly named Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and, surprisingly, a post Microsoft-deal Nokia continue to place such faith in little MeeGo, the open-source tablet system that could. Can it?
Within two weeks of a Mobile World Congress full of excitement over various Android-driven tablets, Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) just has to bring Steve Jobs onstage for 45 minutes, and it’s as if Barcelona never happened. Intel’s counter-argument in part rides on MeeGo, a wide open platform that is pretty much the anti-Apple.
Two weeks after Barcelona, the field's set: There's Apple in its castle, Google in its spaceship -- piloted by that cute little Android -- and MeeGo out in the field, grimly plowing away.
Apple's strategy for winning the tablet war has been a dual effort in which it: 1) corners the market on key parts and drives up supply prices on the competition; and 2) continues the usual Apple scheme of avoiding dissent, throwing its own parties at which it talks about how much everyone else's ideas suck. If we accept for a moment that this will continue working as well as it has since 2005 or so -- Apple claims to have 40 million tablets as a goal for 2011, which suggests it's working pretty well -- then Google's Android may indeed be the weaker player here.
It's a big bet, saddled with an indecisive partner in Nokia, two massive rivals, and an inane name (last tried by a lame sitcom). But things that sound foolish said out loud have tended, of late, to surprise.
Dave, thanks for the explanation. Perhaps the platform would be become more widespread if it is open enough (i.e. easy access to hardware, tools, source code for development). We can see how Android did this, and obviously there are so many opensource contributions.
Hi t.alex - MeeGo has no specific meaning and from what I have read about the name on forums (not the technology) is that people have expressed disappointment in the name for such a promising technology.
MeegGo was formed from two platforms, Maemo from Nokia and Moblin from Intel, to create a “super software platform” specifically for mobile devices and in-vehicle infotainment systems.
Where is Apple's cornering the market -- which components do they basically control? Glass?
Regarding Meego, how serious is it? Does it have a chance to fight with the 'big boys'? It's backed by Intel and Nokia but Apple and Google are still the big boys, in this market at least.
Great analysis--and weaving the trade names in is brilliant. Fun to read. As for tablets, I have no opinion whatsoever. I have not test driven (drove?) enough of them.
In todays situation where Apple still hold its fort and Android is finding new spaces to fill, the Meego should be appropriately renamed as MeeToo as it struggles to get its own feet on the ground.
Flooding has affected two large high-tech industrial parks: Bang Pa-in Industrial Park and Navanakorn Industrial Park, where entire assembly lines are under water.
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Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Peter Drucker famously said "Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window." Yet in the razor's-edge world of electronics—with a lean supply chain and just-in-time demands—the need to know the future is vital.
While no one really can accurately predict the future, we can take guidance from another Drucker saying which is the best way to predict the future is to create it.
You've heard the saying "the No. 1 supply chain risk is your people." That hasn't always been the case. But today's complex global supply chain requires a new type of multitalented employee. It's one who understands, finance, marketing, economics, is savvy with technology, graceful with relationships and can think analytically.
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Brian Fuller, editor-in-chief of EBN, will lead a 60-minute Avnet Velocity panel discussion that will ask and answer these and other questions swirling around today's supply-chain talent challenges.
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