14 DAY TRIAL // MeeGo certainly doesn't have that much more life left in it now that Intel, Samsung, and the Linux Foundation have decided to develop the Tizen operating system for mobile devices, but Asus will still support this OS for the time being, stated recently a company official.
In an interview with PC Magazine, Gary Key, Asus technical marketing manager said that the company will continue to ship such devices in the near feature.
“We will continue to ship MeeGo products and look forward to Tizen," said Key.
The Asus rep actually expects the 1.3 version of MeeGo to launch soon, and this is supposed to bring hardware video acceleration for Flash content.
Key continued by saying that Tizen will come as a natural progression for MeeGo, as all the application that run today on the latter will also be compatible with Tizen.
"I actually think it is a good thing as there are some real positives with MeeGo, especially for its intended audience, but with full support from the two Linux foundations and additional technical support from the Hardware Council, it should be a very viable player in the sub-$200 market next year," declared Key.
Just a couple of months ago, Asus launched its first mainstream netbook to use the MeeGo OS.
This is dubbed the Eee PC X101 and packs a 10-inch screen with a resolution of 1024x600, a single core Intel Atom N435 processor running at 1.33GHz, 1GB of system memory, 8GB of flash storage, and a 3 cell, 28Whr battery.
All these are packed inside a ultra-thin chassis measuring just 0.7-inches (a bit less than 18mm), and the recommended retail price is set at $199 in the US, while in Europe it retails for €169.
Right now, we don't know if the Taiwanese company plans to release a software update for the Eee PC X101, in order to enable it to run Tizen.