asked 2014-12-14 11:26:54 +0200
Hi, I have found an info about new Chinese operating system Yuanxin OS from company called Yuanxin Technology. It is suppose to be build on top of Mer and Qt. They also promise to release phone in first half of 2015. My question is simple what it the relationship between this OS, Mer and Sailfish?
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answered 2014-12-14 22:13:44 +0200
This could be good for Jolla if it's a small or medium sized player, who come to market after Sailfish already has a foothold. It'd help the ecosystem without gazumping them. However, there is reason to believe that they're neither a small player, nor will Jolla have much (or any) time on the market to themselves in China.
The article states that they have registered capital of 1.3billion Yuan. That translates to nearly €170m. Almost 5x as much funding as Jolla has raised since their inception. Also, they supposedly have 200 employees and have been working for 2 years. If these figures are accurate, the company is most likely backed or is wholly owned by large OEMs, marketplace vendors or mobile networks in China; i.e. it's not a small startup. Localisation work and negotiation with potential partners will of course be to the advantage of a Chinese company as well. On day one they could be launching a much more mature OS than Sailfish, and one which would be much more tailored to the home market.
There's also the stipulation that they will launch a phone(or phones) next year. However the silver lining here may be that Spreadtrum are mentioned as their SoC provider or partner. They are considered very low end, and whilst the J1 may be low end, one would imagine Jolla will be aiming for the mid - high end with partnerships or follow up products, so it could be the case that there's little overlap. Therefore, at least initially they may be aiming at different market segments and their respective efforts will prove mutually beneficial. I suspect this is the most likely scenario.
Worst case scenario is that it's someone like BBK (owner of Oppo, OnePlus & Vivo), or it's a consortium aiming to provide a solution for big players like Xiaomi / ZTE / Huawei. This could leave precious little left for Jolla and their openly China-focused business plan, given that Lenovo would be unlikely to go with an externally developed non-Android solution, and Meizu have already signed a deal with Canonical.
Either way, I suspect Jolla know more about it than we do, and have done for some time. Who knows, maybe this paved the way for them to finally sign hardware deals with OEMs (which they hinted at in an Arvopaperi article this week).
@midnightoil I share your concerns, there is a risk for Jolla Oy to be blown out of the water... The upcoming OEM hardware deals however do sound intriguing, would you mind sharing some more info on this?
sidv ( 2014-12-15 03:26:38 +0200 )editAlso, given the explicit hints towards the national strategy for OS independence from "foreign" IP in both the longer article and the short summary, it may not be too far fetched to assume government involvement/funding in this initiative which would be bad news as the playing field would most certainly not be leveled in this case...
sidv ( 2014-12-15 03:32:14 +0200 )editanswered 2014-12-15 05:06:24 +0200
It not like you guys think :( Maybe they do not share source code,and it may become a close source OS.
of course another possibility is that yuanxin translates to sailfish; but what are the chances? :)
tortoisedoc ( 2014-12-15 07:50:51 +0200 )editAsked: 2014-12-14 11:26:54 +0200
Seen: 1,982 times
Last updated: Dec 15 '14
I guess that they both share the same fundamentals (Mer + Qt)?
Quote : "Yuan Heart" is a branch of Mer <- there you go :)
I guess what this means is that Mer just checked in support from Chinese phone manufacturers - which is good news!
tortoisedoc ( 2014-12-14 11:42:13 +0200 )editThat is quite interesting to hear, thanks for the heads up!
nthn ( 2014-12-14 12:30:04 +0200 )editIt can be good news, it can be bad news. It's good if they contribute to the ecosystem and Sailfish can re-use their work. (Which doesn't have to be the case; we know how companies sometimes just don't upstream their improvements.)
It's bad if they build an OS for hardware companies that Jolla had relied on for entering the Chinese market.
ossi1967 ( 2014-12-14 14:22:29 +0200 )edit@ossi1967 : good point; it could potentially be a (controlled) replacement of SailfishOS (yay for privacy in that case!)
tortoisedoc ( 2014-12-14 14:43:48 +0200 )editand this is maybe one of reasons why Jolla so far was careful not to open source everything (i.e., the UI) to render themselves superfluous...
sidv ( 2014-12-14 16:17:06 +0200 )edit