I am interested to hear from you what would you think is the best strategy for Jolla going forward? And sorry if this discussion has been done multiple times already. I am just curious about Jolla and SailfishOS and would love to see them grow.
Maybe I think this through HW side as I don’t understand the SW so well. But in my mind as I have tried to follow the discussion about official Xperia ports and it seems that it is big challenge to make them function as they are dependant of Sony. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just focus on “own” HW like in C2? At least if I have understood correctly only thing holding them back as how smooth the experience is with C2 is limited resources and maybe at some level low-end HW? In my mind they could hand pick best HW compatible with SailfishOS which should make it faster to smooth out the bugs in official ports?
I am sure it is easier to say than done but I also would love to see Jolla to co-operate more with European companies which have own HW designing like HMD, Fairphone etc. I personally love that they picked Turkish company over Chinese one for the C2.
Is the current strategy to try smooth out the SailfishOS before aiming to gain more wider user base? What is the minimum user base needed for Jolla to make profit and grow? How is Jolla aiming to get there? (these questions are more of rhetorical as only Jolla could answer)
There seem to work so many great people at Jolla who do their best to offer alternative for world. Also this community seem so amazing compared to many more and I hope Jolla listens community members. I would also like to thank all of the contributors to SailfishOS and native app developers!
Their own HW drove them to the brink of their first bankruptcy about a decade ago. Since then, they’ve focused on the Sailfish X and limited runs of C-series phones.
My guess is, that they’ve discussed with each other, but they never came to an agreement on the level of the licensing fees, that would satify both parties.
Thank you for the thoughts! Definitely agree that big deal with B2B client would make more significant effect. I have thought about it but I haven’t found perfect B2B client segment that would be most interested of Sailfish, do you have anything on mind? I have thought that defence industry could be potential one or governmental institutions but in Europe I don’t know if it would even be possible to force employees only use specific phones. But definitely potential there as more and more companies are figuring out the importance of cyber security.
Understandable that there is more risk with own HW but at least it seems that Jolla has learned their lesson and made smaller batches with C2. I think they could keep pushing smaller batches out. Then they wouldn’t need to hold so much capital in HW storage.
Hopefully the talks continue and they can find agreement or Jolla launches C3 with much better HW.
My theory is that Seafarix is carrying Jolla at the moment. Trying to get more deals through there might peak the interest of the phone manufacturers in the end.
When Jolla was still doing their own HW, they were working with SSH Communications Security -company to produce phone with hardened security, but nothing ever came out of that… Or at least no phone came out of that.
The Jolla C and Jolla C2 were based on pre-existing designs and Jolla just fitted the SFOS for that HW and slapped Jolla branding on top. Best case scenario would be Jolla C -type where Jolla gets small limited run(s) of C-phones and the manufacturer does their own run(s) of SFOS phones for (local) markets.
I’m sure Jolla is balancing between of not tying up too much money in the inventory, Reeder finds it worth bothering to setup assembly lines for these small runs, and making sure, that overhead costs don’t skyrocket the final price.
I think the best way for jolla would be, to be presented as install option on alternative phones, like volla, Fairphone etc. The problem with the flagship phones is always the same, its not the newest phone, so users loose interest, or for fully supported phones like C2, its hard and software from one hand, but its not the best hardware, so again, its not really attracting to customers. I think Jolla should create a solid base and from there should be trying to convince more and more. A proud but also desillusionized SFOS users since 2017
“What would be best strategy for Jolla going forward?”
The world politics to continue their current trajectory, EU to realize it’s a good idea having their own platforms for things like smart devices and social media.
EU then heavily investing in Sailfish OS.
My theory is that Seafarix is carrying Jolla at the moment. Trying to get more deals through there might peak the interest of the phone manufacturers in the end.
I have also thought that Seafarix could be currently the money making machine and good thing if that is the case.
When Jolla was still doing their own HW, they were working with SSH Communications Security -company to produce phone with hardened security, but nothing ever came out of that… Or at least no phone came out of that.
Maybe time would be right in current geopolitical situation?
The Jolla C and Jolla C2 were based on pre-existing designs and Jolla just fitted the SFOS for that HW and slapped Jolla branding on top. Best case scenario would be Jolla C -type where Jolla gets small limited run(s) of C-phones and the manufacturer does their own run(s) of SFOS phones for (local) markets.
I wasn’t so clear at the beginning, but to my understanding it would still be easier use pre-existing HW compared to for example the Sony line-up? Isn’t with Sony line-up partial problem that Jolla can’t access all necessary information to finalise the UI?
Reeder finds it worth bothering to setup assembly lines for these small runs, and making sure, that overhead costs don’t skyrocket the final price.
Definitely good manufacturer find from Jolla end. This is exactly the kind of thing I think Jolla could do more if it makes it easier to make official port better user experience.
I have gotten a feeling that they are somewhat limited by the resources. As I am not SW person I don’t really understand how much they would be able with the current resources develop the OS. Hopefully a lot but I have thought there being so much going around that they are currently trying to at least maintain the current situation and slowly bringing updates. But for example I have gotten feeling that they can’t that much put resources to app development?
Without co-operation with Volla/Fairphone etc. would it be possible to present install option for those? Or would it be more like current situation with Sony phones and with the problem that comes with it? Agree with that one that C2 is not so attractive for wider audience as the HW is so low-end. A lot of people are very used to fingerprint scanner for example. Thats why I am dreaming of C3 “soon” with better HW specs and things like fingerprint scanner. You have been on board long time!
I hope so much that this will be the case and Jolla can tap some serious funding from the EU. To me it would make total sense to have technological independence in Europe.
either they find a big spender and develope a new SFOS without gazillion bugs from ground up or stop. At this point it is unusable and cannot be recommended to anyone. No matter where you look, the mail client, browser, basic settings… it’s all a mess and worse than every cheap shitphone out there.
I am sorry to say, Jolla lacked and still lacks the right business approach, which is a shame, because as it is now Sailfish is doomed to be the eternal potentially option but not a real alternative. My husband is completely a-technical, so he now uses a Murena phone and he pays each month a few euros for Duval’s cloud. Fair enough.
Instead of developing the Mind it would have been wiser to improve Sailfish on a fixed phone with a clear plan. A survey should be done about people’s wishes, to the most desirable features. Thorough testing before the release of updates is needed.
We still don’t know why Jolla’s coöperation with Fairphone did not succeed. A missed opportunity.
And why not contacting Nokia? Or is that ‘cursing in the church’?
Sailfish is to nice to let it die or to be a tinkerer’s toy only.
For end used it is easier to buy these C-phones, because the devices are flashed at the factory, instead of the need for you to do it yourself, which scares some people away from SFOS. Sony lineup is still pre-existing HW, so what is the difference between Sony and any other phone manufacturer? Sony actually offers the blobs and bootloader unlocking for free for some older models, while with others you need to buy batches of phones in order to have SFOS on them or use community releases.
Sailfish X is built on top of the Sony Open Devices -program, where Sony releases tools to unlock the bootloader (users being able to install custom ROMs) and releases AOSP packages to phone models, that has been replaced with newer devices. The issues are related to blobs that control the actual HW, and before Jolla can start to bring SFOS on Sony devices, they have to wait for Sony to enter the model into the Open Devices program and publish the AOSP blobs. The delays with Xperia 10 IV and V are mostly due to their blobs being riddled with bugs and some of the phones features are just not working and the fixes are beyond Jolla’s control.
In perfect world the blobs would be open source so anyone could implement, update and fix them as they see fit, but SoC-manufacturers guard their products like their life depends on it, and don’t even offer updated blobs after you license them, unless you “buy” (pay for) the new updated version.
There isn’t anything really in smartphone space, sfos is way too behind to be a replacement for the duopoly. Normies can’t function without apps for paying for a bus ticket, city bike or a pass and myriad other functions that ‘just work’ on android/iOS. They don’t care about privacy, no selling point. All those that hope EU will jump in and save sfos are not considering long term effects of that, sure some free cash would be nice, but then politicians come up with all kinds of genius ideas (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/07/apple-encryption-backdoor-uk/, UK government demands backdoors in end-to-end encryption etc etc) and when you’re on gov payroll Jolla would have to just roll over for big brother (hey maybe they can force people off of apple/google kek, even russia only forces aurora in gov companies, are we really looking for inspirations there?). It would be nice to have some visionary at the head of Jolla that could spin a compelling narrative how they plan to combat duopoly (the small dinghy taking on the goliaths… it’s been a while), but it’s just way too unrealistic at this point I’m afraid, would love to be wrong tho
Edit: oh and just for completeness sake, biggest chance sfos has is if Jolla manages to successfully ride a hype wave, if we had native crypto wallet and jolla store accepted crypto for payments, sfos could capture the crypto hype/crowd, easily tens of thousands of people that would provide free marketing, that ship’s sailed, AI, if Mind2 somehow breaks through and privacy-oriented self-hosted AI becomes big, again sfos would become marketed by extension, doesn’t seem like any of those will work, maybe fusion?
Edit2: oh and when last time community freaked out about crypto/blockchain and jolla connection (Jolla 2.0: Jolla’s former management purchased Jolla’s business, IP, and software assets from Jolla Oy) prices were $37k (Bitcoin Price November 2023 | StatMuse Money) muh scam, then the community freaks about subscriptions, whatever the way forward is jolla needs to stop listening to community freakouts
It is but it feels very ReactOS-ish right now. Slow C2 HW doesn’t add to the experience. I wonder why they chose such a slow HW as a base for the next years.
Wait a minute wasn’t there the plan for this with Zipper the cryptocurrency phone thing from one of the Jolla founders which I only found out recently. (I have been only in the Sailfish OS Jolla ship since mid 2021.
