AriJaaksi
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Nokia's former MeeGo chief confirms new role as Senior VP of webOS at HP
Ari Jaaksi, the former head of MeeGo Devices at Nokia, has confirmed reports from last month identifying HP as his new employer. According to the latest update to his LinkedIn profile, Ari is now enjoying the mild temperatures of the San Francisco Bay Area and does indeed hold the title of Senior Vice President at Hewlett-Packard. That in itself doesn't necessarily mean he's the new head honcho for webOS and Palm devices, but clicking on his "Company Website" link takes you to Palm.com, which should dispel any lingering doubts. So now that we know he'll be helping steer the HPalm ship, can we start sending Ari our mockups for the Pre 3 or what?
Nokia's ex-MeeGo chief lands at Palm?
It looks like design heads at Palm and Nokia have more or less swapped roles, as All Things D reports that Nokia's ex-MeeGo head Ari Jaaksi has just been hired by Palm -- a month after Nokia grabbed Palm's Peter Skillman to head up user experience and services for MeeGo. Fate? Coincidence? As long as both struggling smartphone companies bring us better devices and improved operating systems as a result, we're not all that concerned. The report also suggests a Samsung VP and several HP executives will be boosting Palm's team as well.
Nokia's MeeGo device chief quits
The VP in charge of Nokia's MeeGo Devices has resigned. Ari Jaaksi confirmed to Finland's Talous Sanomat that he resigned last week. According to a Nokia spokesman his departure does not affect MeeGo's rollout schedule which had called for a first device to be delivered before the end of 2010. We've confirmed this with Nokia as well, who tells us that an "update on MeeGo" (note the wiggle room in that phrase) will be announced before the end of the year. In case you're keeping track, Jaaksi's departure follows the high-profile exits of Nokia's former CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (replaced by Stephen Elop) and the head of Nokia Mobile Solutions, Anssi Vanjoki. Notably, Nokia's MeeGo team picked up Palm's Peter Skillman as the head of MeeGo User Experience and Services during the same period. It's also worth noting that just yesterday Mobile-Review's Eldar Murtazin said that Nokia's N9 hardware is "near perfect" but the MeeGo software build is "not so good at the moment." Given all this, we can't see how Nokia could possibly ship its first MeeGo handset -- a device Nokia hopes to position against the iPhone 4 and best Android handsets in the US -- in 2010, do you? [Thanks, JJ Ehto]
