Fragmentation threatens mobile Linux momentum
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InfoWorld - Despite signs that mobile Linux is gaining momentum -- such as the launch of&#160;Motorola&#39;s Linux-based Razr2&#160;-- heated competition, confusion about goals, and slow-moving consortiums may be hindering growth.
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Google&#39;s Android software platform for mobile phones&#160;is coming to life in Barcelona with a number of chip manufacturers showing it running on prototype or proof-of-concept phones at the Mobile World Congress on Monday.Freescale, Marvell, NEC Electronics, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments all had Android on show. Most of them expect to see Android phones based on their chips on the market in the second half of this year.The hardware ranged from bulky development boards with daughter cards sticking out at unlikely angles to more compact devices small enough to slip into your pocket. All were built around chips containing processor cores designed by Arm, a British fabless semiconductor company.One of the most polished prototypes is on the Texas Instruments stand -- although TI representatives insisted that it&#39;s just an example of how a finished product could look as the company only makes chips, leaving the development of phones to its customers. &quot;We don&#39;t do plastic,&quot; one said.TI actually had Android running on two different devices. One was based on its OMAP850, a single-chip device containing an application processor for Android and a baseband processor for controlling the phone&#39;s radio interface. The other contained TI&#39;s OMAP3430 multimedia application processor, capable of decoding high-definition television signals at a resolution of 720p. It requires a separate baseband processor, and is designed for high-end multimedia phones.Developing software for a new phone typically takes 14 to 18 months, said Ramesh Iyer, mobile Internet device product manager at TI. &quot;Android cuts that dramatically. It&#39;s a disruptor,&quot; he said.Google is shaking the market in other ways, Iyer said. &quot;Android is a single stack. You don&#39;t have to go looking for third-party solutions. Suddenly, they have defragmented the whole Linux ecosystem into one building block,&quot; he said.Android is entering an already crowded market for mobile phone software: To see how crowded, you only had to look at the NEC stand, where four prototypes containing its Medity2 processor were packed onto a narrow table. One was running Symbian OS, one Windows Mobile, one Android on top of Wind River Linux, and the last was running the same Wind River Linux but with a different application layer based on software from Trolltech and Esmertec.NEC staff expressed surprise at the level of interest in Android, saying they expected more attention for the completed phones based on the Medity2 at the next table. Manufactured for NTT DoCoMo, those phones contained the version of Linux promoted by the LiMo Foundation.The two systems are not necessarily in competition, though. With Android&#39;s focus on the application layer and Limo&#39;s work on the middleware, the underlying services needed to link applications to the Linux kernel, the two can be complementary, NEC staff said.Marvell took the prize for the most secretive Android demonstrations, refusing to allow photographs and declining even to say on which of its communications processors the software was running. The company showed a compact handset running the Android interface with a bare minimum of applications and a more complete installation playing video and browsing the Web on a bulky development board. Shrinking that down to a pocket-sized device will not take long, staff said. In fact, they had one ready -- just not loaded with the Android software.Android&#39;s Linux roots are likely to encourage the development of a wave of new handset applications, said Marvell&#39;s marketing director Vish Deshmane.&quot;You will see a lot more software to run on devices from people who want to exploit the commonality with desktop systems. It&#39;s going to be a boon for the 3G world because more applications means more data traffic, so operators will be happy,&quot; he said.Over at Freescale Semiconductor, staff showed Google Maps zooming in on the center of Barcelona on a development board built around Freescale&#39;s i.MX31 processor. This processor is not intended for mobile phones at all, and is more at home in GPS&#160;terminals or media players such as Toshiba&#39;s Gigabit and Microsoft&#39;s Zune.Qualcomm&#39;s demonstration of its 7201 combined baseband and application processor sparkled, but did not exploit the chip&#39;s full potential. The spinning globe of Android&#39;s Global Time application turned smoothly even without the assistance of the 3D graphics hardware acceleration, for which the drivers are not yet ready, said Rob Woodford.Android phones based on the chip will go on sale in the second half of this year, Woodford said -- but U.S. readers should contain their excitement: the Qualcomm display was overshadowed by a card warning that&#160;it may be prohibited from shipping the products on show to the U.S.&#160;because of a Dec. 31 court injunction obtained by chip rival Broadcom in a patent infringement case.The Mobile World Congress runs through Thursday at the Fira de Barcelona showground.
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Internet telephony application balks on IPaq and Axim Pocket PC devices.
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After years of speculation, there are many who believe that Linux is about to become a major platform for advanced mobile devices. And, not surprisingly given Linux's history, there are those who strongly disagree.
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They&#39;re coming to mobile phones - those nasty viruses, worms and Trojan horses that have, on more than one occasion, crippled PCs.
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A few big brains in Palo Alto want to ease the corporate stranglehold on mobile communication. By Robert Strohmeyer from Wired magazine.
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This little OQO  machine is certainly pretty cool.  The biggest problem though is that it doesn't run Linux.  This leaves you with a device heavier than your PDA and all the insecurity and bloat of Windows and with a price tag of only sub $2000.  People don't care what OS their PDA/Handtop runs.  It can run an alternative OS and for the most part consumers don't care.  WinCE hasn't exactly been a stellar market success.  While Microsoft does have significant market share PalmOS, Symbian, and Linux are doing just fine.  Also most of the WinCE devices never have the fit and finish of their Palm and Symbian counterparts.  I don't know where OQO thinks they are going to fit in.  If they were to  ...
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Powerful computer processor will be modified for mobile devices.
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Windows beats Linux in total cost of 'ownership.' Hold on, that's not a good thing.
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Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin says too many OSes are hindering mobile app development.
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While most mobiles find their way to the trash heap after only a year or two, these decadent devices need their own security details. By Rob Beschizza.
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Forget Windows Mobile 6 -- these open-source handsets might succeed while Linux-on-the-desktop flounders. In Gadget Lab.
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Another mobile Linux platform, this time from Azingo, hit the market on Wednesday, joining an increasingly crowded market of Linux phone software.Formerly called Celunite, Azingo aims to differentiate itself from the crowd by offering phone makers an entire package, including kernel, middleware, applications, development tools, and integration services.&quot;Mobile Linux has failed because there&#39;s a big integration problem,&quot; said Michael Mclaughlin, marketing director at Azingo. &quot;People come with piece parts.&quot;For example, companies such as&#160;MontaVista&#160;and Wind River make mobile Linux kernels, while others&#160;such as&#160;Trolltech, purchased by Nokia&#160;just this week, make application development environments. Phone makers typically must buy the different components, then struggle to integrate them. That puts mobile Linux at a disadvantage against some other mobile platforms,&#160;such as&#160;Windows Mobile, which comes complete, he said.Azingo is offering a complete suite of mobile Linux software but will also help customers integrate different pieces if they choose components from different vendors, said Mclaughlin.The applications Azingo offers as part of the platform include Web widgets that can deliver information such as weather and traffic, entertainment applications such as video and audio players, and productivity software&#160;such as&#160;e-mail.Azingo hasn&#39;t announced any deals with handset makers planning to use its software. Mclaughlin said the company has been working with some of the well-known vendors and expects handsets running its software to ship in the fourth quarter.The company isn&#39;t the only one offering the market a complete suite of mobile Linux software.&#160;A La Mobile has a similar approach, using some of its own software and integrating components from other vendors, including Trolltech. GUPP Technologies, a Malaysian company, announced in 2006 that it would use A La Mobile&#39;s platform.Azingo will also compete against&#160;Android, Google&#39;s high-profile Linux-based mobile phone operating platform, which includes an operating system, middleware, and applications. Android phones are expected to become available in the second half of this year.Azingo is a member of the&#160;LiMo Foundation, a group founded by Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, Samsung, and others to build a mobile Linux platform.
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Blog: Mobiloscenti say devices are robust and networks ready, but carriers and content producers are gumming up the works.
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As hardware gets more powerful, Sun expects the desktop version of Java to gradually replace the stripped-down mobile version. Will it un-fragment Java for gadgets?
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Does Ubuntu point the way to the real future for desktop Linux?
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As Red Hat Inc. prepares to launch the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system on Wednesday, the question is again being asked whether a robust and feature-laden operating system is really needed for some computing situations.