I thought of that article too, but I think one of the key differences is that neither OS/2 nor Windows had totally taken over the market when the Windows compatibility was introduced. So it turned the 'what to make apps for' question easy to answer.

The smartphone industry is way beyond that - people are making iOS and Android apps, and very little else.

It's different.

os/2 vs. windows was about two players attempting to prevent each other from monopolizing the industry.

I don't think the Jolla guys go into this with a business plan of one day being a monopoly, or preventing another player from dominating the mobile industry.

Jolla is - I think - about offering consumers what nokia under elop was unwilling to give them: a MeeGo device.

I think their main focus right now is getting the devices in peoples hands. Do you think compatibility with android would help with this?

As long as their business is based on selling hardware, it might not be a problem. Then they are not competing with Google in mobile OS development, but with Samsung etc.

Sailfish OS could then allow them to differentiate from other handset makers, without advertising it as such. In other words, market the capabilities, not the Sailfish "brand".

Would Sailfish also run apps that use google play services?

No, not as far I know.

Jolla CEO Tomi Pienimäki went on record last month stating that devices will ship with its own app store partner, Yandex http://store.yandex.com I believe, not Google Play.

So apps consuming Play Services might work if a user was able to install the play services .apk, but I guess this would not be in a supported fashion.

Seems all very murky. Jolla claims full Android compatibility but I don't believe it has Android(™) compatibility. Would be a good developer FAQ.

OS/2 Warp was released in 1994 just before Windows 95 and only supported Windows 3.1 applications. So it was necessary to abandon the OS to use new & upgraded applications designed for Windows 95. At the time, I found OS/2 was much better at running Windows applications as application errors didn't end up causing system instability and the dreaded GPF. I think the analogy would be more accurate if Jolla is unable to support applications designed for KitKat.

Canonical refused to offer Android emulation for that reason. They didn't think it would be beneficial for Ubuntu Touch in the long term.

IMHO that's right decision. BlackBerry offered Android and it is low value.

Blackberry has a security model that is incompatible with Android's rather liberal model, so every app has to be vetted and sold through Blackberry's app store. That will put a big wet blanket on your Android app availability.

Technologically, Blackberry did a great job.

Technologically, yes, it works, but not always correctly. Users don't like it. That's like public transportation with Ferrari seats claiming Ferrari experience.

> The recent article on OS/2 [1] makes me wonder whether such compatibility (which, as I understand, is full and not selective) is actually good for them.

I would bet it will make Jolla a winner. Android apps will always be new and fresh, even after Microsoft stops throwing money at developers. Jolla will always have a fall-back in case some new popular app takes off.

The problem is you wend up with Jolla simply running a whole load of non-native apps that fail to use the OS to the best of its ability, it can really ruin the perception of an OS if all these swipe gestures etc work in some apps, but not others.