The quest for freedom from US technologies and patent fees has been a persistent theme in China and has helped shape the new mobile landscape, in which Baidu and Alibaba, not Google and Amazon, dominate the user experience. Less is heard about another massive market, Russia, but here too, the push for technology self-sufficiency is gathering momentum, creating opportunities for alternatives to Android and iOS.

The Russian government has chosen Sailfish – a Finnish Linux-based mobile operating system created by start-up Jolla – as the basis of its own mobile software platform, which will be developed by new venture Open Mobile Platform (OMP) and will be adopted by government agencies and state-owned corporations.

Russia chooses Jolla over homegrown effort

Russia’s Ministry of Communications assessed various alternatives, according to local reports, and in particular, chose Sailfish over Tizen OS for its greater openness and security. Jolla chairman Antti Saarnio told TechCrunch that the selection process had started back in spring 2015. He added: “It started with the IT Ministry of Russia long-listing available alternative mobile operating systems. They ended up doing a technical analysis of two OSs: one was Tizen, the other was us, Sailfish OS.”

He explained: “After a couple of months very thorough technical evaluation they selected our OS for further collaboration. What we then started was a joint R&D project with a local Russian organization to build an OS version of Sailfish into Russia so that government will have an independent OS but it’s supported by our overall code base. The Russian government has a list of software which can be seen as a national software and which are audited and certified, and in this list of software, our software is the only mobile OS software — currently.”

It seems that there were no credible Russian-developed alternatives to Android, though Jolla is working with Open Mobile to integrate Sailfish code with a Russian services platform.

Mobile Jolla company has released a phone called C Jolla.

The new phone is not coming general sale, but He who sells it only through the community program.

Jolla C is produced in only 1000 copies Edition, and the company expects deliveries to begin in July. The unit price will be 169 euros in Finland.

The device is supplied with Sailfish OS

Source: http://www.digitoday.fi/mobiili/2016/05/26/jolla-paasi-yllattamaan-julkaisi-uuden-puhelimen/20165702/66

Sailfish OS and mobile devices Jolla developer, today announced that it has secured new funding to continue its operations. Which tells the recruit for software developers to accelerate product development in existing and future projects.

The company has also agreed to early voluntary arrangement with the largest creditors and canceled his debt restructuring application in March.

After last year’s financial problems, which now has acquired a new round of financing totaling $ 12 million, which is enough to secure the company’s operations at least until the end of 2016, the release states.

Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/jolla-sai-rahoituksensa-kuntoon-pois-kuolemanlaaksosta-6547166

Hi all Jolla Tablet backers and other Jolla followers

We have been pursuing all three avenues of the Tablet project’s closure in parallel: shipping the remaining batch of tablets, refunding Indiegogo contributors, and refunding our pre-order customers. The team is small and there’s a lot to do, but we are making progress all the time.

The Indiegogo refund process is a bit complex due to the sheer number of contributions and contributors (22,000 and 10,000, respectively), and differing refund practices for the different payment providers used during the campaign.

We have just recently shipped a batch of 77 devices to backers who earlier confirmed their order in the Jolla Shop.

Just 540 additional Jolla Tablets will be shipped out to backers of the original Indiegogo crowdsourced campaign, according to the Finnish manufacturer. All of the other backers will be offered refunds, but those users may not see their entire amount paid out for a year.

The original campaign in November 2014 generated over $2.5 million from 21,637 backers. However, Jolla later got his with financial issues that caused delays for the tablet. It uses the company’s Sailfish OS 2.0, which can run both Android apps as well as ones made specifically for Sailfish.

Jolla said that in the fall of 2015 it shipped 121 units of the tablet, but continuing financial issues combined with supplier problems affected their plans. It stated this week:

We have been analyzing different alternatives regarding the Jolla Tablet project situation. But no matter how you come at it, the tight financial situation remains a major constraint and therefore a main driver of the solution. Furthermore, due to the delays in the latest financing round it has simply become too late to produce all the tablets for the project. The supplier no longer has the needed components and many of them are no longer available. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done now to change this.

Jolla announces that it is unable to fulfill all Jolla Tablet crowdfunding perks
http://www.neowin.net/news/jolla-announces-that-it-is-unable-to-fulfill-all-jolla-tablet-crowdfunding-perks

Back in November, Jolla announced that it had hit hard times after a lead investor had pulled out of its November round of financing. The situation led the Finnish company to temporarily lay off most of its staff and apply for debt restructuring in a fight for its survival. Jolla then emerged from its third death valley in December after securing much needed financing to help improvement the company’s stability.

Prior to these financial difficulties, co-founder Marc Dillon departed the company in September 2015 which fuelled speculation amongst the Jolla community as to the reasons behind his exit. Unfortunately, Jolla will not be starting off the new year on the right foot, as Jolla’s Head of Communications Juhani Lassila, has some rather disappointing news for backers of the Jolla Tablet project on Indiegogo

We don’t have all pieces of the puzzle figured out just yet, but a few things are now certain: we are happy to say that we will be shipping an additional small batch of the Jolla Tablet to early backers during early 2016, targeting to send invitations during January. The bad news here is that we are not able to complete the production to fulfill all contributions. In other words, all of our backers will not get a Jolla Tablet.

Finnish mobile OS maker Jolla, whose Sailfish platform is one of the few remaining alternatives trying to fight the Android-iOS duopoly, has pulled out of its latest financing death valley by closing a delayed Series C financing round.

A relieved chairman, Antii Saarnio, confirmed to TechCrunch Jolla has received the “first tranche” of the investment — which he said will stabilize the company’s financial situation.

Possessing deep trouble: Debt restructuring

Mobile company Jolla announced that it filed for financial restructuring in order to ensure continuity of operations and profitability translation. The company has filed his own bankruptcy petition in the Helsinki District Court.

According Jolla ending in November funding round has been delayed, which is why it has to adjust and organize their activities.

Which will also have to lay off “a significant proportion of its people,” the company says in a statement. The layoffs will begin in phases in December. Jolla Communications Director Juhani Lassila told reporters earlier Aamulehti that more than half of the employees have to be laid off.

- Start-up typically we have been through the past four years the number of death valley and fought them through and now face is the next big challenge, Antti Saarnio Chairman of the Board Jolla says the release.

Source: http://www.itviikko.fi/uutiset/2015/11/21/jolla-pahoissa-vaikeuksissa-velkasaneeraus/201515386/7?rss=8

Dear Jolla followers and especially Jolla Tablet contributors and pre-order customers,

It has been a while since I, as the captain of the Jolla boat, have written anything here on the Jolla Blog. Now I’d like to share some news from our start-up’s helm.

As you all know, Jolla is a small boat (= start-up in layman’s terms), which is fighting through the stormy waters carrying a huge cargo: Sailfish OS – one of the few independent mobile operating systems – and, of course, the Jolla smartphone and Jolla Tablet. To an outsider it may appear as if we are “just” carrying devices and tablets, but it is actually the operating system that is taking up the most space and requires a lot of development and effort.

Typically only huge “cargo ships” like Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) carry operating systems as cargo. No wonder our sailors (Jolla employees) sometimes feel that this is “mission impossible”, yet they keep on delivering.

While Sailfish OS 2.0 was delivered successfully, we have not succeeded in delivering the Jolla Tablet on time to our Indiegogo contributors, and we will miss the schedule for our pre-order customers, too.

The good news is that we are shipping the first batch of the tablets now. At the same time we are preparing the second batch and aim to start shipping at the beginning of November. Finally, and assuming all goes well, we aim to start shipping the remaining of the Jolla Tablets during December 2015.