RIP: Meego; Well, hello Tizen!

So it becomes official — Meego is now officially dead and a new Linux-based mobile operating system is being groomed to replace it, and it’s called Tizen.

Since Nokia moved ahead and partnered with Microsoft on the Windows Phone 7 OS, Meego has lost a huge supporter. Intel is left with no handset manufacturer so develop Meego so it’s looking somewhere else and found Samsung.

Imad Sousou posted the transition plans from Meego to Tizen on their blog:

By now, you may have read that The Linux Foundation, with the support of several other companies, announced a new project, Tizen, to build a new operating system for devices. This new project is first and foremost open source, and based on Linux. So it begs the question: why not just evolve MeeGo? We believe the future belongs to HTML5-based applications, outside of a relatively small percentage of apps, and we are firmly convinced that our investment needs to shift toward HTML5. Shifting to HTML5 doesn’t just mean slapping a web runtime on an existing Linux, even one aimed at mobile, as MeeGo has been. Emphasizing HTML5 means that APIs not visible to HTML5 programmers need not be as rigid, and can evolve with platform technology and can vary by market segment.

Over the next couple of months, we will be working very hard to make sure that users of MeeGo can easily transition to Tizen, and I will be working even harder to make sure that developers of MeeGo can also transition to Tizen.

Samsung’s huge support for Tizen is no surprise, considering the Korean manufacturer has been on the roll for the past year with its Android-based handsets and tablets, Bada-powered phones and Smart TVs.

Tizen is said to be able to run on smartphones, tablets and TV sets.

Aside from Intel, several other companies are backing the project — ACCESS, Panasonic Mobile, NEC Casio, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, SK Telecom, Telefonica, and Vodafone {source}.

The Linux Foundation will host the development of Tizen and made the announcement earlier today:

Today we are welcoming a new project hosted at The Linux Foundation. Tizen is a Linux-based, open source platform designed to address the future of HTML5-based applications across a variety of device types. We think the project has a lot of potential, both for its technology and the major players it has involved in it.

But many of you who closely watch this space may be asking: what about Meego? While Meego will remain a project at The Linux Foundation, we see industry leaders lining up behind Tizen.

First release of Tizen is expected to be in the 1st quarter of 2012 along with an SDK. Check out Tizen.org to follow its development.

So what happens to Nokia N9 now? Well, the Finnish company has stated it will continue support and development of Meego.