It's not exactly clear what Nokia's future MeeGo plans consist of, as the Finnish firm gave the OS an experimental status when it signed a Windows Phone partnership with Microsoft last year. Fans of the platform no longer have to look just to Nokia to get their MeeGo fix, though, as a new startup known as Jolla has announced that it'll continue work on MeeGo. The Finland-based company is made up of "directors and core professionals" from Nokia's N9 team as well as other members of the MeeGo community. Jolla says that it plans to sell new MeeGo-powered smartphones and that it's been working on both the OS and a new handset since the end of 2011. A new smartphone using a MeeGo-based OS will be revealed by Jolla later this year. Jolla explains that the OS on this smartphone has "evolved" from MeeGo using its own tech as well as some other pieces, and that it'll feature a "brand new UI."

Obviously there's still a lot of mystery surrounding Jolla and its projects, but this is still pretty exciting news for all of the MeeGo lovers out there. While it sounds like whatever Jolla is cooking up will differ a bit from what most of us know as MeeGo on Nokia's N9, it'll still be interesting to see what Jolla can come up with, especially since several members of its team spent some time working on the N9. It's not yet clear exactly when we'll get a peek at Jolla's new smartphone, but you can be sure that we'll bring you more details as soon as we get our hands on 'em. Anyone interested in keeping up with every update that Jolla has to share can follow the company's official Twitter page, @JollaMobile.

MeeGo Smartphones and Operating System Find a New Life in Jolla Ltd.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jolla Ltd. is an independent Finland based smartphone product company which continues the excellent work that Nokia started with MeeGo. The Jolla team is formed by directors and core professionals from Nokia's MeeGo N9 organisation, together with some of the best minds working on MeeGo in the communities.

Jussi Hurmola, CEO Jolla Ltd.: "Nokia created something wonderful - the world's best smartphone product. It deserves to be continued, and we will do that together with all the bright and gifted people contributing to the MeeGo success story."

Jolla Ltd. will design, develop and sell new MeeGo based smartphones. Together with international private investors and partners, a new smartphone using this MeeGo based OS will be revealed later this year.

Jolla Ltd. has been developing a new smartphone product and the OS since the end of 2011. The OS has evolved from MeeGo OS using Mer Core and Qt with Jolla technology including its own brand new UI.

The Jolla team consists of a substantial number of MeeGo's core engineers and directors, and is aggressively hiring the top MeeGo and Linux talent to contribute to the next generation smartphone production. Company is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland and has an R&D office in Tampere, Finland.

Sincerely,

Jolla Ltd.

Dr. Antti Saarnio - Chairman & Finance

Mr. Jussi Hurmola - CEO

Mr. Sami Pienimäki - VP, Sales & Business Development

Mr. Stefano Mosconi - CIO

Mr. Marc Dillon - COO

Via Engadget, @JollaMobile, Jolla on LinkedIn