One of the founders of Jolla company, Sami Pienimaki, and company CEO Tomi Pienimaki (R) present the new Jolla smartphone that uses Linux-based Sailfish operating system. (Photo : Getty Images)
Jolla, a company known for building the Sailfish OS, has signed an exclusive license with a Chinese consortium to build an independent OS for the country. This Sailfish-based OS will be completely exclusive to the Chinese territory.
The company has courted Shan Li, one of the leading PE investors in the country, to head its exclusive Sailfish division in China.
Li has been an early investor in Jolla's vision to build an operating system that can break the monopoly of Android and iOS.
Android holds 62 percent of the market share, iOS holds 17 percent and the remaining 1 percent account for other operating systems such as Windows 10 Mobile, Tizen, Sailfish and others.
"China needs an own independent mobile operating system. I have been closely following Sailfish OS development and seen many Chinese projects fail, while Jolla’s Sailfish OS has been steadily progressing. Sailfish OS is the only viable alternative for China," said Li.
Jolla has long been considering to enter China and build an ecosystem around the Sailfish OS. They want to power smartphones via their operating system, but also want to reach people through consumer-focused solutions for different devices such as televisions, smartwatches, IoT devices, and connected automobiles.
To make this ambition a reality, the Chinese consortium invested $250 million for the development of the ecosystem.
Antti Saarnio, the chairman of Jolla, said: "Since the beginning of Jolla, for five long years, we have been aiming to offer Sailfish OS for the China market. At the same time, China has for many years tried to build their own OS based on Android, but without success."
"With this exclusive license to the Chinese consortium, we offer a very fast path to build an independent operating system, which gives China the opportunity to build their mobile technology on solid rock, instead of sand," he added.
Mobile OS maker Jolla has already deployed a similar independent Sailfish-based operating system solution in Russia which was developed in just six months.
