Norse code
Not surprisingly, many of these start-ups have involved mobile phone technology. Jolla is one lifeboat which launched from Nokia, with Sailfish, an open-source operating system created from a spiked Nokia project, Meego.
Sailfish debuted at Slush 2012, with all the company's then-60 employees taking the stage.Co-founder Marc Dillon, who spent 11 years at Nokia, says it offers easier multitasking than existing mobile operating systems.
"You have the ability to see all your applications at once, and interact with them at the same time without going deeply into one, then taking several steps back to go into another," he says.
A second key aspect of Sailfish, says Mr. Dylan, is it is open source. "If 80% of the world is running Android phones, then all the companies and ecosystems and devices are basically tied to one company strategy. "He says the operating system has native apps "in the thousands" but can also run Android ones.
Mr. Dylan sees Sailfish's next steps as working with chiefly Asian original design manufacturers, who make the modules mobile companies use. "You create devices now with modules and other companies do the integration," he says.