It has been almost a year since Intel and Nokia began converging their respective mobile Linux platforms to create the MeeGo project. The effort has attracted interest among hardware vendors, but hasn't quite reached the stage where it is ready for mainstream consumer devices. A growing body of evidence suggests that the wait might soon be over.

Nokia had hoped to deliver its first MeeGo-based product in the fourth quarter of 2010, but pushed back the launch into 2011. Nokia's MeeGo debut device was originally expected to be the rumored N9 handset, but the subsequent flow of conflicting rumors and leaks has left little in the way of clarity, leaving broad speculation in their wake.

The latest round of rumors suggests that Nokia is still aiming to bring the N9 to market, but that it will be powered by an Intel Atom processor. This seemingly dubious suggestion got a boost last week when Intel showed off a smartphone with the company's Medfield SoC.

We are also starting to see some signs that Nokia is polishing up MeeGo for a product launch. In a brief and informal note posted on the Qt Labs blog earlier this week, Nokia's Henrik Hartz acknowledged that Nokia has temporarily closed the MeeGo-themed branch of its Qt Quick components project. The contents of that branch will allow third-party Qt applications to conform with the MeeGo look and feel. Nokia says that this code is being finalized and that the developers are "unable to make certain pieces of the final user experience public" during the last stages of development.

Nokia has taken major steps over the past year to increase the transparency of Qt development and wouldn't lightly decide to hide such a critically important part. The move suggests that Nokia is working on its custom MeeGo look and feel and wants to keep certain elements of the user interface design under wraps for competitive reasons until the first MeeGo product is unveiled.

Hartz says that moving behind closed doors is a temporary measure and that the code will be published as soon as the developers are permitted to do so. Although the situation is a little bit frustrating for developers, it's arguably an extremely positive sign that Nokia is getting close to finally delivering a MeeGo product.

Although MeeGo is extremely late to the market and Nokia's execution of its Linux strategy has been somewhat weak, MeeGo still has the potential to be a game-changer. The many strengths of the Qt toolkit and MeeGo's close alignment with the upstream Linux ecosystem could help the platform to gain some traction. If Nokia can pair those technical advantages with a compelling user experience, MeeGo could be the competitive edge that Nokia needs.