Mi-Fone

Last updated
mi-Fone
Limited Company
Industry Telecommunications, Consumer Electronics
Founded2008
Founder Alpesh Patel [1]
Headquarters Mauritius [1]
Key people
Nikhil Patel, [2] David Stoltz
Products Mobile phones
Website www.mi-fone.mobi

Mi-Fone is a Mauritanian mobile phone company founded by former Motorola's Director of Sales in Africa, Alpesh Patel, in 2008. [1]

The African company (using "mi-Fone") partners with Jolla to bring Linux Sailfish OS mobile devices to mass African markets. [3]

In February 2011, Nikhil Patel joined the company as head of operations. [2]

In 2013, Alpesh Patel told Forbes that all mi-Fone models are Chinese made but the company is planning to build a manufacturing facility in Nigeria. [1]

In early 2016, mi-Fone partnered with Konga.com, a Nigerian online shopping franchise, to sell the mi-Tribe series of mobile devices. [4]

Related Research Articles

INOI LCC is a Russian trade company, designing consumer electronics, present advanced Sailfish OS smartphone INOI R7 as partner of Jolla the developer of the OS.

MeeGo Linux-based free mobile operating system

MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin and Maemo. Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances in the consumer electronics market, MeeGo was designed to act as an operating system for hardware platforms such as netbooks, entry-level desktops, nettops, tablet computers, mobile computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, SmartTV / ConnectedTV, IPTV-boxes, smart phones, and other embedded systems.

Nokia N9 Smartphone model

The Nokia N9 is a smartphone developed by Nokia, running on the Linux-based MeeGo "Harmattan" mobile operating system. Announced in June 2011 and released in September, it was the first and only device from Nokia with MeeGo, partly because of the company's alliance with Microsoft announced that year. It was initially released in three colors: black, cyan and magenta, before a white version was announced at Nokia World 2011.

Mer (software distribution) open-source system software that provides essential OS features, but not a kernel or GUI

Mer is a free and open-source software distribution, targeted at hardware vendors to serve as a middleware for Linux kernel-based mobile-oriented operating systems. It is a fork of MeeGo.

Jolla Finland-based developer of smartphones

Jolla Oy is a Finnish technology company; vendor and developer of Sailfish OS. Headquartered in Tampere, Finland, Jolla has its own research and development offices in Helsinki, Tampere and Cyberport, Hong Kong. Jolla was founded in 2011 by former Nokia staff of the MeeGo project team to use the MeeGo opportunities and its "endless possibilities".

Sailfish OS mobile operating system

Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system based on open source projects such as Mer and including a closed source UI. The project is being developed by the Finnish company Jolla.

Jolla (smartphone)

The Jolla smartphone is a smartphone produced by Jolla that runs the Sailfish OS, released on 27 November 2013 and manufactured in China.

Konga.com is a Nigerian e-commerce company founded in July 2012 with headquarters in Gbagada, Lagos State. It offers a third-party online marketplace, as well as first-party direct retail spanning various categories including consumer electronics, fashion, home appliances, books, children's items, computers & accessories, phones and tablets, health care and personal care products. The company also has logistics service (KXPRESS), which enables the timely shipment and delivery of packages to customers.

Jolla Tablet

The Jolla Tablet as a product was the first tablet designed by Jolla running the company's Sailfish OS, a Linux-based OS built around the Mer software components.

Aqua Fish is a smartphone produced by Intex Technologies that runs the GNU/Linux based Sailfish OS 2.0 released in July 2016 costing about Rs 5,000, whose hardware specification is nearly identical to Jolla C, a limited-edition mobile phone released in May 2016 by Jolla geared toward Community and Developers, only with different cellular bands set. It is historically the first mobile device launched by OEM with Sailfish OS licensed from Jolla. The licensed OS allows to launch and use Android software simultaneously with native OS software. It is the first device in a strategy for establishing Sailfish OS as the common and official operating system for the BRICS countries. The device was on display for the first time during World Mobile Congress 2016 at Barcelona in Spain.

Turing Phone is a Sailfish OS and Android OS smartphone by Turing Robotic Industries (TRI) which provides end-to-end encryption for secure communications. The device uses decentralized authentication to encrypt any communications and comes with its master public key and unique private key pre-installed with the phone. When a device is communicating with another Turing Phone, the two devices can directly verify their identity, side-stepping the need to route it via a Key Distribution Center.

Turing Space Industries is a mobile technology company, which builds mobile technology, based on decentralized authentication methodology, using static key exchange with an anonymous key distribution infrastructure.

The PuzzlePhone was an uncompleted modular smartphone project by Circular Devices. The device's design was intended to allow its main parts, which would be specific modules, to be easily assembled and replaced by the user.

The Mi-Fone device is a Linux MeeGo Sailfish OS smartphone mobile by licensed by Jolla for African markets. The mobile device intended for a mass African markets was announced during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona 2016.

Jolla C is a limited-edition mobile phone by Jolla geared toward Community and Developers with Sailfish OS and no third-party applications installed by factory, so called "purest Sailfish OS". It is the first dual SIM device from Jolla, whose hardware specification is nearly identical to Aqua Fish released later on by Intex Technologies, only with different cellular bands set. It is compatible with Android apps.

Ermak 50 is smartphone with Sailfish OS. Operating temperature range from -10°C to + 50°C. Resistance to fall from 1.2 m onto concrete. Resistance class of IP54.

The Sailfish watch is a wearable devices that connects to a Sailfish smartphone and can display and control more functions than only time. It is not a production model, but a proof of concept study aiming to show that Jolla can bring Sailfish to many different shapes and form factors. The goal is to get it done on the watch and prove that the OS is well designed for smaller form factors and easy to navigate.

The INOI R7 is a mobile phone employing the Sailfish OS. It is manufactured by Chinese company Tinno Mobile for Russian company INOI. It was presented at the Mobile World Congress in February 2017 in Barcelona. The OS is an open-source Linux and has the ability to serve additional closed source components to a particular device from third parties built into the OS special layers for personalization and marketing purposes. The genuine multitasking capability of the Sailfish OS allows it to run and employ multiple applications simultaneously, switching among them in real time. The number of apps running together is limited by the amount of free memory available on the device.

Accione is a low-cost hi-tech smartphone with Sailfish OS or Android from the Bolivian company Jala group developed in cooperation with Jolla. It is intended for Latin America customers, for the first time announced at Mobile World Congress on 27 February 2017 in Barcelona. The OS is open source Linux and have ability to serve additional closed source components from 3rd sides built-in the OS special layers for personalisation and marketing purposes by partner manufacturing a particular device. The real multitasking of Sailfish OS allows to run and use together many software applications, switching them in the fly in real time, without freezing them in background. Number of apps running together is not fixed by OS, but it is limited by amount of memory every next app requires to run and amount of free memory available at the device, until next app can't be launched.

The Youyota Tablet, 64bit device running Sailfish OS above 2.0 upon direct official license from Jolla, is successor and resurrected from oblivion incarnation of Jolla Tablet with the same original design and specifications, but 4500mA battery and versions with 32 or 64GB of built-in flash storage.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Mfonobong Nsehe (April 30, 2013). "Meet The Entrepreneur Working To Challenge Nokia, Blackberry And Samsung In Africa". Forbes. Retrieved August 22, 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Mi-fone appoints new head of operations". Biz Community. 1 February 2012. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  3. "Jolla partners with mi-fone to bring Sailfish OS based devices". Innovation Village. 26 February 2016. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  4. "Konga.com and mi-Fone launch Mi-Tribe". IT News Africa. February 5, 2016. Retrieved 20 December 2016.