Brad Smith article

[Dean Collins]

I guess the OpenMoko community need to work on the PR skills, perfect
opportunity for a mention and it got totally glossed over.

 

 

Regards,

Dean Collins
Cognation Pty Ltd
dean at cognation.net
<mailto:dean at cognation.net> +1-212-203-4357 Ph
+1-917-207-3420 Mb
+61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial).

  <http://click.mexuar.com/webuser/click/7/userurl/Cognation>  
<http://click.mexuar.com/webuser/nojs/7/userurl/Cognation> 
 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL EDGE:

 Opening Up the Wireless Handset
By Brad Smith, Wireless Week Technology Editor 

I don't like to be one to hype a technology, but you have to feel the
energy building behind Linux for mobile phones. Part of that is due to
the announcement by smartphone maker Palm it will use Linux in future
phones.

Palm's news, which came during an analyst call on the company's
financials, was interesting for two reasons. First, people (myself
included) have been wondering what Palm was going to do with its
user-friendly Palm OS. Palm essentially acquired the latest OS, a
5-year-old version called Garnet, from Access, which purchased
PalmSource. Apparently Palm wanted Garnet to be able to support its use
on the current crop of Treos, but it looks like Garnet will not father a
child.

CEO Ed Colligan says Palm now plans to use Linux in future Treos so the
handsets can handle both voice calls and data at the same time. Colligan
says Palm also will continue to make Treos based on the Microsoft
Windows Mobile OS, which have been pretty successful over the last year
or so. Colligan also predicted the worldwide smartphone market will grow
to a $36 billion business by 2009 and Palm wants a bigger global share.

Palm's announcement, of course, also was of interest as an example of
the building interest in recent months in the use mobile Linux. The
analyst firm ABI is predicting major growth for mobile Linux in the
years ahead. In a report before Palm's announcement, ABI said more than
127 million Linux handsets will be sold by 2012, compared to 8.1 million
this year.

"Linux in the cellular phone is not a question of 'if', but 'when',"
says ABI research director Stuart Carlaw.

There are a number of other options for mobile Linux, including
Trolltech's GreenSuite and the Access Linux Platform (why didn't Palm go
with it?). And Nokia, which has been getting more and more into open
source software, also has joined the Linux Foundation. Nokia uses Linux
in its Internet Tablet, a version of which could wind up on Sprint's
WiMAX network. Nokia also has started distributing a software developer
kit that can be used to make it easier to port Linux projects to Symbian
OS smartphones.

It all spells growing interest in mobile Linux. As IMS Research analyst
Alison Bogle says, handset manufacturers cannot afford to ignore Linux
for future handsets. Time will tell, but Linux apparently is going to
become a bigger force in the mobile world.

What do you think? Let me know at brad.smith at advantagemedia.com.

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/attachments/20070412/5ebb2305/attachment.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 2775 bytes
Desc: image002.gif
Url : http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/attachments/20070412/5ebb2305/attachment.gif 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 5422 bytes
Desc: image003.gif
Url : http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/attachments/20070412/5ebb2305/attachment-0001.gif