Nokia cancels Meltemi project

Nokia's latest round of layoffs and project cancellations has apparently claimed a major victim: the company's Meltemi effort to replace the ageing Series 30 and 40 operating systems on its budget and midrange handsets. Without confirming that such a project had ever existed, CEO Stephen Elop confirmed to analysts and reporters that several engineering projects have been shelved. Nokia will now focus on improving Series 40 which powers the Asha range of affortable phones. In the days that followed, a group sprung up on LinkedIn, with the name Meltemi Product Developer Alumni. Posts on the group appeared to indicate that the project was very nearly complete. Nokia has laid off thousands of workers and closed several facilities in the past few months, and sales of Lumia phones in the next quarter will also be bleak thanks to their just-announced incompatibility with Windows Phone 8