Intel To Let MeeGo Go: Rumour

Intel is planning to “temporarily discontinue” its development efforts on the mobile MeeGo operating system due to the company’s lack of success in signing up hardware developers to the platform, according to a report.

Intel will instead focus on developing mobile handset hardware next year, with the focus on either Google’s Android or Microsoft’s Windows Phone, according to a report from Taiwan-based DigiTimes citing unnamed industry sources.

‘Continued support’

Intel responded that it would continue to stand by MeeGo. “We remain committed to MeeGo and open source, and will continue to work with the community to help develop and meet the needs of customers and end users,” the company said in a statement.

Intel has searched for hardware partners for MeeGo, which was launched in March 2010 in an effort to combine Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin, both based on Linux.

For its part, Nokia effectively dumped the platform in February with the announcement it would use Windows Phone for future mobile devices – just as Intel was showing off a MeeGo tablet.

In April the project did receive significant backing from Tencent, a major Chinese software and hardware development company. However, no major device vendor has yet committed to MeeGo-based products.