I don't think it is. Regardless of company size, we developers do generally not have the technical background and education to design hardware (or boats), nor do hardware designers have the qualifications to build software architecture and code. Someone with knowledge of Jolla must say what's the case there, I can't do that, but I'd be surprised if they do not either have both hardware people and software people from Nokia, or buy hardware design services from their manufacturer partner.

Jolla didn't build the first device in self-owned plants, as far as I remember. Nor did Kazam, and Kazam announced 7 new Android phones when they launched their products. And our small company have worked with other small companies that does indeed make hardware on a small scale, so you don't need to be Samsung-big to survive with both designers, engineers and developers in quite separate roles. As a matter of fact, it's easier to crash a company if you try to upscale to take market shares, than if you concentrate on building and selling devices at a profit.

It is true that they need more operators and more money if they want to be big world wide. However, they don't really need to have a large market share to survive. Most companies aren't big. Jolla can survive just fine as a small specialist company just like any other small company in any other line of business. The size will of course limit how quickly the OS can evolve.

This is easier to agree on. Sure, most successful upstarts are indeed bought out or investor controlled, that's how it has been throughout the ages. And myself, if I was the largest owner of Jolla stock, I'd be perfectly happy with becoming bought up if only the price was right. There's no way to tell if Jolla will try to grow on their own terms or be bought up. But if they're bought up, then congratulations to the Nokia ex-employees, then they've turned their skills and experience into economical security.

But not all upstarts are taken over by larger competitors. Nobody bought out Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Jolla, or even the small software company I work in, yet. And yet, former giants in their markets like Motorola, IBM's PC division, and Nokias phone division have all been bought out by what must be considered newer players within the same market.

So, that Jolla is a small company primarily means one thing: that they have more potential for explosive growth than a large company. Even today, the media seems to judge Jolla to be a success story, many asking if this is the next big thing from Finland.