Nokia's Elop: We won't return to MeeGo, even if N9 is a hit

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) CEO Stephen Elop ruled out the possibility that the company will deliver more MeeGo-based smartphones, even if the company's first MeeGo device, the N9, is a hit in the market.

Click here to see a video of the N9's UI in action.

The Nokia chief made the comments in an interview with the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat, in which he discussed the company's continued transition to Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 7 as Nokia's primary smartphone platform. While the statement is not much more than a reiteration of the company's past position, Elop did say that Nokia will apply learnings from the N9 to future phone models.

"The N9 features many new breakthroughs related to its usability, design and materials, which we will be utilizing and developing further in our upcoming models," he said, according to the newspaper. Elop declined to go into specifics.

The N9 is notable in many respects, especially because it does not have a home button (or any other buttons). Instead, when users are running an application, they can swipe from the edge of the screen to return to the home screen. The phone sports curved glass, a 3.9-inch AMOLED display, 8-megapixel camera and Near Field Communications capabilities. A leaked video last week of Elop displaying a prototype Nokia Windows Phone device dubbed "Sea-Ray" showed a device that looks remarkably similar to the N9.

Elop reiterated comments he has made in the past about speeding up research and development within Nokia and continuing to innovate. He said his conversations with carriers on Nokia's Windows Phone efforts have been positive so far.

For more:
- see this Helsingin Sanomat article

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