LiMo claims mobile Linux lead
Foundation adds support
With mobile OS a hot topic at the moment, evidenced by Sony Ericsson's licensing of Windows Mobile and Arun Sarin's call for consolidation in the area, The LiMo Foundation was in bullish mood as it announced Orange and Access had joined the group.
Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation, said there were now 18 "LiMO" mobile phones, with 15 of them commercial, two being reference designs and one a prototye.
The company also announced Release 1 of its platform, and had published all its APIs for public access on its website, Willis said, proving that the Foundation is about producing actual code for real phones.
"We are not a standards body," Willis said. Access joining the group, which already includes Motorola, means that the two biggest investors in the development of Linux based mobile OS are now under the LiMo umbrella. Both companies are estimated to have invested upwards of a billion dollars in platform development, and will be looking for a business model that offers them some return on that investment.
One operator member of the LiMo Foundation we spoke to said he was OK with that idea.
"We're in this because we want to see open standards and access at the application layer, to drive innovation and make development easier, and reduce our own platform support demands," he said. "If companies can differentiate and add value around their own IP, then that's fine too," he said. Willis said that he was sure Access would want to contribute elements of its ALP development to LiMo code and future releases.
Although LiMo talks about a consolidated, de-fragmented, mobile Linux platform, in fact phones can be called LiMo phones at the moment if they have included some element of the LiMo code. Full compatibility, with certified applications that can be developed once and deployed across the whole platform, will probably only arrive with Release 2, Mahesh Veerina, chief executive officer of Azingo, which makes Linux based platforms for mobile phones, said.
Veerina said that the goal of LiMo was to arrive at a consolidated mobile Linux platform, but that the landscape was still currently quite fragmented. He admitted that there would also be a Linux flavour under Android and the Open Handset Alliance but he contrasted the approach of the two groups.
"We have a management board, a set of rules and policies which all the players agree to. Where is the control in the OHA? It sits with Google - member of the OHA signed a thre page document agreeing to Google's terms and they are members. But the two approaches are very different."
Although many portray Linux development as a direct rival to Symbian -S60 and Windows Mobile, as well as Android, Veerina thinks that the real game lies in the mass middle market of phones, nearly all of which are developed on vendor specific, proprietary OS's.
"The bottom billion phones, which are essentially voice devices, will stay as they are, and the top 10% will stay with the likes of Symbian, Windows Mobile and some Linux, as well as Apple. But the two to three billion phones that sit in the middle, that's the opportunity for Linux, because it opens the mass market up to the sorts of applications that at the moment are only available at the top tier."
Veerina's argument is that it is the cost of developing and porting applications to so many different proprietary OS that is limiting the market, as well as placing strains on operators to support multiple OS.
Share this article with others
Post to del.icio.us
Printed from http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news_analysis/113661/LiMo_claims_mobile_Linux_lead.html
Comment on this article
Skip to comments
We encourage users to analyse, comment on and even challenge Mobile Europe's articles, including the one above - 'LiMo claims mobile Linux lead'
User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site.
Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site.