The Mobile World Congress (MWC) - which this year round has been witnessing a flood of Operating Systems and platforms - Monday saw the unveiling of a new Linux-based platform – MeeGo, which is the result of a team-up between Intel and Nokia.

The open source MeeGo OS, which will support ARM architecture and Intel’s own Atom processors, is top-end smartphone software that is an amalgamation between the Moblin from Intel and the Linux Maemo software platform from Nokia.

The advanced MeeGo will be a one-stop OS that can be used for powering a number of devices – while a scaled-down version of the software will power the next-generation smartphones; a full-blown version can even power desktops, as well as netbooks and tablets.

Commenting on the broad-base MeeGo OS, John Strand, owner and head of Strand Consult, said at the MWC: “They (Intel and Nokia) have understood the only way to beat Microsoft, Google and Apple is to do it through scale -- get the platform to more devices.”

While the source code and other details of the MeeGo OS will be revealed in the forthcoming weeks, the first devices running this platform would likely hit the markets towards the end of the year. However, there has been disclosure about the brands, other than Nokia, which might use MeeGo for powering their devices.