Not Another Mobile Phone Blog

The LiMo Foundation has launched its next set of mobile handsets running on the open source LiMo Platform. LiMo announced the below mentioned handsets that are launched and are available commercially.

* FOMA N906i, FOMA N906iμ, FOMA N906iL and FOMA N706i from NEC

* FOMA P906i and FOMA P706iμ from Panasonic Mobile Communications.

In the month of February in the Mobile World Congress, LiMo had launched 18 handsets. Also, LiMo Foundation has got a new set of members this month and now LiMo Foundation has 50+ members. LiMo new joiness are, Cellon, Esmertec, Freescale Semiconductor, Longcheer Holdings, MIZI Research, Movial Corporation, PacketVideo Corporation (PV), SK Innoace, Telecom Italia, VirtualLogix™ Inc. and ZTE Corporation. Till now LiMo is the only open source Mobile OS entity whose handsets have been available commercially and are well accepted in the market. Other open Mobile OS companies like Android and LiPS have not made any of their handsets commercially available till date. When these consortiums launch their handsets they would have to face tough completion from the already established LiMo Platform.

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I dont think so that Android will become a major OS. Primarily because, it is being developed since 2007 and no commercial devices have come out, we have sen just prototypes at some events or mobile summits. Where as if you have a look at LiMo, which is another open mobile platform, it ha launched 18 handsets along with its partners and these handsets are from major companies like Motorola, Panasoni and are commercially available.

Why am I comparing Android and LiMo? As, both of them are almost the same, both the platforms are backed by the OHA (Open Handset Alliance) and the LiMo Foundation respectively. Some of the members of this foundation are common. LiMo is scoring more on Android because it just focuses on the middleware and LiMo Foundation's members who have the software stack ready can do anything to the platform as long it is compatible with LiMo Foundation's specs. Where as when it comes to OHA, which is backing Android, there are a lot of business model conflicts between the members and actually Google is the one that has final say on anything, this in long run won’t work. Also, Verizon, a member of both OHA and the LiMo Foundation, recently announced that it will soon be coming up with handsets running on LiMo platform. Now interesting thing is Verizon became the member of OHA first and then LiMo Foundation (one month back) and still they say that they would come up with LiMo handsets first. By the way they have not denied an Android handset, though.
Yesterday Nokia announced that it is buying Symbian and soon will be coming up with an open source platform along with Sony Ericsson, Samsung and other companies that are supposed to be Nokia's fiercest rivals. Google guys must have certainly been taken back by this given the penetration and the range that Nokia has to offer. And on the top of that it is reported that Google might take some more time to launch the handsets. I am not saying that Android is a failure, it’s a good operating system but the kind of things we are seeing, I don’t think Android becoming a major OS in the near future.

The European Commission gave an unconditional nod to the Trolltech acquisition by Nokia in the first week of June. Trolltech is a Finland based company that develops the QT platform. The company is also a member of the LiMo Foundation. Trolltech has Linux based software development platforms and frameworks. Nokia has today announced officially that they have completed the acquisition of Trolltech. With this acquisition of Trolltech Nokia will add speed to its cross platform software strategy for mobile devices and also its internet tablets. Did you know that, the moment the LiMo Foundation came to know about Nokia’s plans to acquire Trolltech they stopped any contributions from Trolltech to the development of the LiMo Platform and vice versa. Sometime back, Nokia also showed a positive outlook to develop mobile phones that will run on Linux and not on Symbian, dont worry they will churn out Symbian phones also.

European Commission has given an unconditional nod to the acquisition of Trolltech for by Nokia. Trolltech is a Norwegian company that develops cross platform solutions and development tools. If you are not aware, Trolltech own the Qtopia mobile platform and is pretty positive about Linux for mobile phones. Trolltech is also the member of the ever increasing LiMo Foundation that has recently seen splurge in its memberships with big wigs like Verizon and STMicroelectronics joining the foundation. Qt technology of Trolltech was also used by Motorola in its Linux phones but now Motorola has parted ways with it and is fully supporting the LiMo platform of which both, Motorola and Trolltech are members. Today, EC gave permission to Nokia and the company is in the process of acquiring Trolltech. Sometime back Nokia said that, in future, they will be using Linux as a platform in other of their mobile devices apart from their Internet tablets. Nokia has not given a 100% nod for Linux on their mobile phones but they have not denied also and with EC giving a nod to the acquisition of Trolltech, it seems Nokia’s dreams of competing in the world of open source mobile platforms would come true.

Nokia uses Maemo OS in its Internet tablet the N810. The N810 is called the Internet tablet, as it is its primary motive to browse the Internet and other multimedia; Nokia has been emphasizing on the fact that it is not a cell phone. The N810 runs on Maemo, which is an Internet tablet OS. Nokia has recently acquired the company called Trolltech, which has a full Linux stack ready and by the way Trolltech is also one of the core members of the LiMo foundation that makes the LiMo platform. So somehow all these guys are connected through a common link, Linux. Nokia has till now not announced anything with respect to what they are going to do with Trolltech and if I am not mistaken the talks are still going on and the acquisition has not been fully successful yet. Nokia’s Internet tablets are based on Linux but when it comes to mobile phones they are very much Symbian loyal. Also, there are very few phones in the market from other mobile handset OEMs that run on the Linux platform.
Nokia has said in one of their talks with Reuters that, they are looking forward to using Linux platform in wide array of mobile devices; they have not specifically mentioned that they will be using Linux in their mobile phones. Nokia’s CFO has also told Reuters that Nokia is developing next-generation Linux based products.
But given that fact that Linux is open, can be easily shared and has a large developer community behind it development it makes sense for Nokia to go for Linux in its mobile handsets.