Ewan Spence wrote a breathtaking article over at Forbes a week ago. While I was lazy enough to miss that, Jay Mantono enlightened us in a recap news at MNB.

Which OS do you think is occupying the third seat? If you vote for WindowsPhone, it’s time to think again.

Starting in late 2013, Jolla initiated the sale of the same-branded phone in the domestic market via DNA operator, simultaneously, customers were able to purchase the phone through Jolla website. After hijacking couple of DNA stores — And ya know, it was lotta fun, Jolla officially landed in Italy. The ambition of the once-startup Finnish phone maker was protruding more than ever and, then, very recently Jolla stroke two birds with one stone as it’s now available on Hong-Kong via Three Operator and also in Kazakhstan, the vast land of Nomads filled with natural resources. Ah! did I say that Jolla is readying up to enter the Indian market by August?

Antti Saarnio, Chairman of the Board at launch Event in HK was very vocal about where Jolla stands in today’s market.

“A wise man said nine months ago, that the third mobile operating system is coming any day now. This man was Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man. As Jolla launches today the Jolla smartphone with Hutchison Telecommunications, I claim that the day is today. Good things do take time to grow and the world needs a new mobile OS.”

These words, erupted with hope, shows the aspiration of the Finnish phone maker to endure the tough race with giants and passing them at the end of the road.

Seriously how could a start-up that came to light out of nowhere possibly beat a company size of BlackBerry?

Let me put it this way, Volkswagen is the third largest car maker right now but if you ask any executive about the company’s future, they’ll tell you, with sweet German accent, that VW is going to be the largest one in 2018. They have the base, they got the plan … so let be it.

Although this is somehow not a fair comparison as it must be a smaller car maker i.e. Pegani instead of VW but the whole point is about having a forward-looking plan without superfluous idealism.

It’s still too soon to tell which company has built a concrete stronghold in the third place. Microsoft’s WindowsPhone is declining roughly for six months but the oft-rumored Lumia 730/830 and the just announced, HTC One M8 for Windows could bring a fresh blood to WP’s vessels. On the other hand, CEO Chen of the BlackBerry, in a leaked internal paper told the staff that the dark medieval days are over and it’s likely to see BB back on track. Still, the third place could be for everyone since there’s a growing mentality for adopting newer OS’s.

Yet Jolla does not have the Carriers support as well as developers attention either. But no one becomes big overnight and seemingly though, Jolla is taking the right steps to be a major player, another differentiator in Asian mobile markets… tomorrow.

It’s too much of arrogance to think Sailfish OS will become the third major player in the world’s market anytime soon but by down scaling the vision, you’ll notice that there are only BB10 and WP8 devices available in 3 Operator’s stores and they opted to select Sailfish powered devices instead of other OS’s. So apparently, in a niche environment, Sailfish OS actually is the third option… And as the theory says, the world is expanding.

via MNB



Source Forbes