answered
2018-03-21 14:55:28 +0200
While the blog entry is new, the "news" is old: It just means that the announcment "Rostelecom acquiring Votron, the majority owner in Jolla" from January 2018 was successfully executed (i.e. the contracts are signed and have become effective by 2018-03-01)!
Still many thanks to @AkiBerlin for the pointer to Jollas blog, as it is very interesting to read how the carefully worded blog entry avoids stating "Rostelecom has become the majority stakeholder of Jolla Oy", but via Votron exactly that seems to be the case now. Edit: But it does not hold the majority of shares, while being the biggest shareholder, as explained by James Noori in the comments of aforementioned Jolla Blog entry.
A part of that "wording game" (which is about generating fog, IMHO) seems to tell that Rostelecom has invested into "SailfishOS" (the software proper, i.e. a product), not a company / holding, but in fact the latter is the case.
While that allows Jolla to stay afloat and sailing, strategically this move bears some dangers.
P.S.: This older article (2016-05-11) provides quite some background information.
P.P.S. rsp. update (2019-08-28):
This Kommersant article (Google translation) from July 2018 provides a in-depth analysis of the company links ("Who owns how much of whom?") plus an outlook at the future, while this one (Google translation) carries only little extra information.
Mind that the descriptions of some technical details are slightly distorted, e.g. "patents" (supposedly means "full license, including the ability to distribute adapted versions of proprietary software components").
Another update (2020-01-01):
This interview (Google translation) is quite interesting, although it does not contain anything really new and has to be interpreted with a grain of salt plus from a Russian perspective.
Yet another update (2020-02-08):
Found an excellent, maintained information page on Sailfish OS from a Russian perspective, linking to information pages about Jolla (including a well written, brief history), Rostelcom (interesting!), Votron and OMP.
Tadviser.com also reveals the size and importance of this licensing business in 2019 / 2020: [1] / [2] / [3], plus [4] and [5].
Related:
https://www.rostelecom.ru/en/ir/news/d443013/ Excuse my ignorance by I am not quite sure what it means when it says: ” .. securing a controlling stake in Sailfish Mobile OS RUS.” Seems like there is a subsidiary for a Russian version of the OS? Or does it mean that they have a controlling stake in the “entire” OS/Jolla?
cquence ( 2018-03-21 13:46:25 +0200 )edit@cquence: They bought majority of OMP who makes the localized version of SFOS for Russian markets. Also there were talks about them buying majority in one of the Russian shareholders of Jolla so throught both of them they have control over some percentage of Jolla shares.
avhakola ( 2018-03-21 14:20:26 +0200 )editSailfish Mobile OS RUS is not Jolla, see the other TJC post
AkiBerlin ( 2018-03-21 14:30:55 +0200 )editIt would, however, be interesting who is indeed controlling Jolla. Or put differently: how much control do the Investors have.
AkiBerlin ( 2018-03-21 14:32:40 +0200 )editReading the Russian language version of the Rostelecom PR it implies they have a controlling stake in both SailfishOS RUS and SailfishOS, aka Jolla,
https://www.rostelecom.ru/press/news/d443012
richie ( 2018-03-21 14:46:25 +0200 )edit