According to some experts, the demonstration video was meant to show off the hardware for the upcoming device and not the OS it was running. It is believed that the N9 would still be a MeeGo handset.

If this is true, then the Nokia N8 would really be the only Symbian^3 smart phone in the N-series lineup. Nokia’s new head of mobile solutions however, is not ruling out the possibility of another Symbian handset on the N-series –which is most likely to happen when the Symbian^4 comes out.

Should the Nokia N9 come with the Symbian^3 OS the device is expected to get re-designated to another Nokia phone series. The demo videos already label the handset as the C0-00 (as seen printed on the device’s casing), which hints at the possibility that the device might be adapted to the C-series.

Still, many believe that the n9 is destined for the MeeGo operating system. It has already been announced that the new mobile platform will be ready by October –which means that it would not be long before the OS is installed in the N9. According to Intel, the MeeGo OS has been designed to work with both Intel Atom and ARM processors. So even if the N9 was using an ARM based CPU, it would still be able to run the OS without any problems.

The MeeGo operating system is the new OS that officially replaces Nokia’s previous Maemo and the Intel Moblin (which is based on Linux). The technology for the two operating systems has been combined to bring the uniquely named MeeGo mobile platform.

The MeeGo is a combined effort of the teams that handled the creation of Moblin (an Intel made, Linux based operating system) and the Maemo (Nokia’s proprietary operating system which was used in the N900 smart phone). The combined product is the MeeGo, a sleek looking user interface that brings together simple controls, a basic user interface and what might be the easiest platform to developer for. According to Intel, the new OS will not be exclusively tied up to their processors. This means that the MeeGo will still work on devices that make use of ARM made processors.

The developer copy has been released quite early in order to entice developers and enthusiasts to try out the new mobile platform, and from the looks of it, Nokia’s plan is going to succeed. They had quite the large community support for the Maemo despite the low public profile that system had during its development. It is likely that the same devs will also try out the newer MeeGo OS. So far, it has not been confirmed if the N900 will be upgradeable to the MeeGo OS –Nokia has yet to announce if MeeGo is new version of Maemo or a completely new system.

As for upcoming handsets, it seems that the very first Nokia phones to make use of the MeeGo will be popping up by October (alongside the launch of the Windows Phone 7). The Nokia N8 is still a Symbian handset but the Finnish manufacturer announced that after the N8, all other N-series devices will be using the MeeGo operating system.

The Symbian operating system on the other hand, is slowly losing its grip on the market. Originally, the Symbian is a widely used OS (until now), but with its features and capabilities slowly dragging behind its competitors, fewer and fewer mobile phones are still using it. Right now, there are only a handful of significant smart phones that are using the OS (mostly from Sony Ericsson; the upcoming Vivaz and Kanna, as well as last year’s Satio). Other mobile phone manufacturers have been busy with either proprietary platforms or the Android and WinMo systems.

The big downer for Symbian came last year when Nokia announced that they would be using the Maemo operating system for the N-series of mobile phones. This announcement came shortly before Samsung announced that it would be focusing on the use of the Bada OS more and other systems less –leading to the inevitable rumor that Symbian was getting dropped completely. While both companies have expressed that they will continue to support and use the Symbian OS (especially Nokia), the fact that the OS needed to adapt to times was evident.

Originally, the Symbian OS was supposed to shift to open source sometime later this year. The plan has been moved much earlier in an apparent bid to attract more devs. Of course, this also means that we might see the Symbian and variations of it on other devices too.

Read more about the Symbian operating system going open source on Times Online.