The Linux Foundation announced that MeeGo (the new platform resulted by merging Intel’s Moblin with Nokia’s Maemo) has received support from many companies from a wide range of sectors.

The companies are: Acer, Asus, Asianux, Amino, BMW Group, CS2C, Collabora, Ltd., DeviceVM, EA Mobile, Gameloft, Linpus, Hancom, Maemo Community Council, Mandriva, MontaVista Software, Metasys, Miracle, Novell, Red Flag, PixArt, ST-Ericsson, TurboLinux, Tencent, VietSoftware, WTEC, Wind River and Xandros.

In addition, feature lists for MeeGo handhelds (smartphones) and netbooks have been made public during Intel’s IDF conference in Beijing.

The features of MeeGo handheld devices should include: 3G voice and data, Wi-Fi, VoIP, Instant Messaging, social networking integration, location based services, data sync for cloud and device, feeds (stock, weather and news), Fennec browser with Flash support, audio and video players, camera and so on.

The features of MeeGo netbooks should include: touch and gesture support, “configurable and pluggable Toolbar with configuration utility”, 3G data, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, VPN and Static IP support, simplified email and calendar clients, and Chrome, Chromium or Firefox browser.

Here’s what the MeeGo UI for smartphones looks like at the moment:

And this is the MeeGo UI for netbooks:

The first MeeGo devices should be commercially available starting the second half of 2010. Until now, it all looks quite interesting, so let’s hope Intel and Nokia won’t disappoint.