Against all odds

It's been almost two years since my last post on my blog. Coincidentally, or maybe not, my last post, announced that the Nokia N900 had started to ship. I come back to write now to celebrate the launch of the N9, the last product from the Maemo/MeeGo group in Nokia.

Phil Collins will forgive me if I borrow the title of his song for this post, but this is exactly the feeling I have in these days. The N9 had to survive the earthquake of the 11th of February, the tsunami that wiped out the MeeGo organization, outlived the plague of the many people who left the organization since that gloomy, fateful day, and yet it's (almost) there. Soon you'll be able to enjoy its inherent beauty, simplicity of use, experience a totally new user interaction model, and feel the pleasure to just hold it in your hands and look at it.

And like my colleague Urho, I feel immense sense of respect for all those people who contributed to make this happen. We have done nothing short of extraordinary under the circumstances, demonstrated a sense of commitment with no equals being able to pull this up till the end, and yet we built an amazing jewel.

I feel immense pride to be part of this group, a group that managed to hold on and build something that so many people have admired on its launch day, and hopefully even more will soon enjoy in their everyday use.

I want to thank all those who contributed to make this, nothing short of a dream, come true. Thank you also to those that have decided to leave Nokia but contributed to the N9 work: I'm nothing but sure that they all feel what I am feeling right now.

Enjoy, be proud and be focused for the last mile, and our celebration will be complete!