Jolla separates its software (Sailfish OS) and hardware businesses; Jolla Tablet could start shipping this month

Finnish company Jolla today announced that it's splitting its software and hardware businesses. More exactly, Jolla Ltd. will concentrate only on developing and licensing Sailfish OS, while "after the summer" a brand new company will be established to take care of making and selling devices - including the Jolla Smartphone, the Jolla Tablet, and all future Jolla-branded hardware products.

Founded in 2011 by ex-Nokia employees, Jolla is now seeing "huge opportunities in the Sailfish OS licensing business" - which probably means that various other companies will soon launch devices running Sailfish. As you may know, Sailfish OS is based on MeeGo (a now extinct software platform developed by the Linux Foundation using source code from Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin).

The only Sailfish OS device that hit the market until now is the Jolla Smartphone. But the second one, the Jolla Tablet, is coming soon. Jolla raised $2.5 million via an Indiegogo campaign to launch the tablet around the world. Initially, the slate was supposed to be shipped starting June, but Jolla had to "switch to a new display" (a 7.9-inch panel with 1536 x 2048 pixels), and now the tablet is expected to start shipping in late July, or in August.


sources: Jolla, Press release (PDF) via PhoneScoop