MWC: AppUp, MeeGo, Open Source, and Tablets

The partnership between Nokia and Microsoft that was announced the other day has caused some speculation that the Intel powered AppUp store in general, and the MeeGo in particular might be the losers in this story.

Helena and I spoke with Peter Biddle, General Manager to AppUp Products and Services, and he said that despite this partnership, AppUp and Meego will thrive. Proprietary systems have a place in the ecosystem, and so do open ones.

Further scaling the development of flexible, open software platforms and applications for all mobile devices, Intel demonstrated a compelling new MeeGo tablet user experience to be made available through the Intel AppUp Developer Program. The MeeGo tablet user experience features an intuitive object-oriented interface with panels to display content and contacts – all geared to give consumers fingertip access to their digital life: social networks, people, videos and photos. The MeeGo tablet user experience is on display at the MeeGo Pavilion at Mobile World Congress.

The idea is to focus the tablet experience on the user. The devices will LEARN about what the user wants to see as the user reads emails, news, uses apps and adjusts as the user ignores some applications and uses others. In other words, as you use it, it learns what you care or don’t care about and it adjusts future offerings to suit your needs.

I asked about their businesses and revenue share with developers, and Peter said that the AppUp store will use a 70/30 revenue split, and they will further allow developers to leverage a portion of their remaining percentage for featured market placement in the AppUp store.

MeeGo is not a Nokia effort or an Intel effort, it is a viral community effort that will bring a truly open ecosystem to the industry.

Patrick Remy, Orange VP of Devices, said that just because one of the partners has shifted their focus to another platform (I.e. -Nokia and Microsoft), there is much commitment to MeeGo that has not wavered.

With that said, Renee from Intel said that they [Intel] were “very disappointed” with Nokia’s decision.

However, there are “many other manufacturers in the community who are going forward.”

User interface and consumer experience are what the MeeGo is focusing on at the moment.

MeeGo will continue to grow into a great, scalable platform that lets developers build a ubiquitous software services socket.

For consumers, if you think about the experiences you have with the popular prevalent mobile devices today, within the walled garden, the experience is good. But when you step outside that walled garden, the experience breaks down.

MeeGo and AppUp want to work together to solve issues for users of all platforms. So you can buy apps for any platform from within their store, and the apps will work properly with any MeeGo enabled device. This will include multiple form factors such as netbooks, tablet, set-top-boxes and in-vehicle infotainment systems in cars.

Building on Intel’s support of multiple operating systems, the company announced its intent to deliver the industry’s fastest performance on open source Android* with Intel® Atom™ processor-based devices running Gingerbread and Honeycomb, slated to come to market this year. The company also announced a series of Intel Capital investments to drive continued innovation across the mobile hardware, software and applications ecosystems, and to enhance the user experience across a continuum of devices, including handhelds, tablets and laptops. The investments include Borqs, CloudMade, InVisage, Kaltura, SecureKey Technologies and VisionOSS Solutions.

You can read the full release from today’s press conference here.

More info from Intel:

• Leading network operators, device manufacturers, operating system vendors and system integrators have endorsed MeeGo and Atom for multiple devices, including netbooks, smart TVs, tablets, in-vehicle infotainment systems and more. Additional information on the breadth of ecosystem support can be found here.
• The Intel AppUp^SM developer program is expanding to accept apps for MeeGo™-based tablets and netbooks. The program now offers technical resources, tools and incentives for developers to create, distribute and sell MeeGo-based apps.
• Intel released the MeeGo tablet user experience (UX). It features an intuitive object-oriented interface with panels displaying content and contacts – all geared to give consumers fingertip access to their digital lives with easy access to social networks, people, videos and photos.

Please note, that in accordance to the FTC Guidelines and WOMMA Code of Ethics, I am disclosing that Intel Corporation has covered my travel, accommodations and costs related to our visit to MWC 2011.