HELSINKI: Marc Dillon still remembers the sick feeling that overcame him when Nokiaannounced it was scrapping a software project that he and hundreds of other developers had spent years creating.
It was early 2011, and Nokia, the Finnish cellphone giant, was struggling to compete with the sudden rise of Apple and Samsung in the global smartphone market. In response, Nokia's chief executive, Stephen Elop, ended the company's plans for its own operating system and joined with Microsoft to focus on building Windows-based phones.
"I almost threw up when I heard the news," said Dillon, an American engineer living in Finland, who was laid off after the company's strategy shift. "Nokia did a lot of great things for a long time. We didn't want to see this part of the story end."
So Dillon and three other former Nokia executives took it upon themselves to prove their onetime bosses wrong.
Over the past three years, with the help of around $20 million in outside investment, they have built Jolla, a 100-employee company of mostly former Nokia engineers, to develop the operating system that Nokia discarded. Their goal is to compete with Android, Google's dominant mobile software. Late last year, they finished the first part of the effort, releasing a smartphone powered by its open-source software, Sailfish.
It was early 2011, and Nokia, the Finnish cellphone giant, was struggling to compete with the sudden rise of Apple and Samsung in the global smartphone market. In response, Nokia's chief executive, Stephen Elop, ended the company's plans for its own operating system and joined with Microsoft to focus on building Windows-based phones.
"I almost threw up when I heard the news," said Dillon, an American engineer living in Finland, who was laid off after the company's strategy shift. "Nokia did a lot of great things for a long time. We didn't want to see this part of the story end."
So Dillon and three other former Nokia executives took it upon themselves to prove their onetime bosses wrong.
Over the past three years, with the help of around $20 million in outside investment, they have built Jolla, a 100-employee company of mostly former Nokia engineers, to develop the operating system that Nokia discarded. Their goal is to compete with Android, Google's dominant mobile software. Late last year, they finished the first part of the effort, releasing a smartphone powered by its open-source software, Sailfish.
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