Following the launch of Apple's much-hyped iPad, a number of other companies are preparing to roll out competing products. According to an analyst, one of those companies is Nokia, which is said to be working on a new tablet device that will launch by the end of the year.
Nokia was one of the early players in the touchscreen Internet tablet market. The company debuted its 770 tablet in 2005, running Maemo, a variant of the open source Linux operating system. Nokia's tablets were designed to be operated with a stylus, but Maemo was redesigned with a more finger-friendly interface for the launch of the N900, Nokia's first Linux-based smartphone built with the tablet operating system.
Nokia has since teamed up with Intel in an effort to build an industry-standard Linux platform called Meego that will work across a wide range of mobile form factors and support both the ARM and x86 architectures. MeeGo incorporates some of the best elements of Maemo and Intel's Moblin netbook operating system. The path towards converging Maemo and Moblin is still at a relatively early stage, but a significant portion of the source code is already available.
Nokia has already said that it aims to deliver MeeGo-based devices by the end of the year. According to sources cited in a Reuters article, Nokia's MeeGo lineup could include an Internet tablet that is intended to compete with the iPad. Nokia has not confirmed plans for a tablet, so it's possible that it's just conjecture by the analysts. Based on supply chain considerations, the analysts believe that Nokia is aiming to get a tablet device on the shelves by the end of October so that it can meet holiday shopping demand.
Source: ars technica
