Details continue to emerge about Newkia, a new smartphone company that hopes to combine the best of Nokia’s hardware engineering with the Google Android mobile operating system. In an interview with CNET Asia, company founder Thomas Zillacus touched upon a number of topics, including branding and company management.
Newkia will launch its phones under a different name than Newkia. As clever and catchy the name might be, it could be that Zillacus expects that there could be legal issues in using the new name. He has some ideas for the new name but did not disclose any of them during the interview.
Zillacus also revealed that he will not lead Newkia. Someone else will get that honour and, according to him, it’s a “name you have all heard of before.” Again, no further details were given.
Despite an offer of free office space from the mayor of a Finnish city, Zillacus plans on keeping Newkia based in Singapore. That has not stopped the job applications from flowing in, including from current Nokia employees not interested in working for Microsoft.
Zillacus also reconfirmed that Newkia will use Android as the operating system for its devices. He dismissed using Jolla’s Sailfish OS, an effort that emerged from the ashes of MeeGo, explaining that it faces the same issue as Windows Phone 8: A poor app ecosystem.
It certainly sounds like things are moving forward for Newkia. With an initial focus on Asia, it still remains to be seen if we’ll ever see its devices in North America.
Source : CNET Asia