14 DAY TRIAL // The Finish company Jolla has managed to remain in business after a successful financing round, giving hopes to the users that we might yet see new Jolla products in the future.
Jolla is a company formed by people who used to work for Nokia, and they had a dream of building mobile devices powered by a Linux-powered operating system. That OS is named Sailfish, and it gathered quite a following.
There is a need for new operating systems and for a change in the current paradigm for the established Android and iOS solutions. Many companies rose and fall trying to do just this, and until a couple of days ago it looked like Jolla was going to be one of them. The company laid off some of the staff and the co-founder and Chairman of the Board, Antti Saarnio, explained that there is a good possibility for them to fail.
Jolla made its name with a successful crowdfunding campaign and a unique operating system, and it looked like they might be able to pull through, especially since they have a powerful community of fans.
Jolla is safe for now
Just like there are too many Linux distributions to count, the same should happen for mobile operating systems. In this way, the survival of a few powerful names is guaranteed. Right now, there are only a couple of them, Ubuntu and Jolla, and a third one is coming in the form of Plasma Mobile. The good news is that Jolla will be here with us for a while longer.
"We’re back from the death valley! We have just finished our latest financing round and secured solid new financing to the company. This investment enables the continuation of Sailfish OS development, the community activities and other company operations. It’s clear that this recent struggle hit us hard and left some battle wounds, but most importantly this means that the development and life of Sailfish OS will continue strong," wrote Jolla's Juhani Lassila.
From the looks of it, the company will continue to focus on Sailfish OS 2.0. Also, they are targeting India and Russia as the main markets, which seem to be more welcoming to new projects.
The Ubuntu and Jolla communities have collaborated in the past, and it will be nice to have another Linux-powered mobile operating system in the wild.