Device manufacturers Motorola, NEC, Panasonic Mobile Communications, and Samsung Electronics, have teamed up with mobile phone service providers NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone to form the as-yet-unnamed mobile Linux initiative.
The six companies said they intend to create a single mobile phone software platform based on the Linux kernel that will reduce time to market as well as development and testing costs.
Linux is growing in popularity as a platform for mobile phones given the small footprint of the Linux kernel and its low cost, but there is no dominant mobile Linux vendor and the proliferation of numerous vendor-driven distributions has so far limited its impact against global brands such as Symbian and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.
Samsung truly believes that this effort will be a significant step to offering a cost-effective and unified software platform for mobile phones based on the Linux operating system. This effort will benefit both the consumers and the participating companies, said Lee Chulhwan, senior vice president of Samsung’s Mobile R&D team.
An independent foundation will be created to carry out the group’s objectives to develop an open source code base, API specification, reference implementation, and test suite for the mobile operating platform.
The group also stated that while they intend to be responsible for delivering the first reference implementation of the operating system, they will actively encourage participation of other interested parties, and coordination with existing industry organizations.
There are a number to choose from, as the mobile Linux industry already boasts a number of Linux platform and standardization initiatives. The Consumer Electronics Linux Forum, formed in July 2003 by Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, and Panasonic, maintains a collection of Linux modifications for use in consumer dynamics as well as the CELF specification and reference implementation.
It also has a Mobile Phone Profile Working Group, which announced its first API for phone functionality in March, and is working with two other leading mobile Linux projects on the formal review of its specifications.
These include the OSDL’s Mobile Linux Initiative, which was launched in October 2005 to accelerate the adoption of Linux in the mobile phone market, and the LiPS Forum, which was launched last November to develop standardized application programming interfaces to define Linux-based services for mobile phones.
MLI members include Montavista Software, Motorola, PalmSource (Access), Trolltech, and Wind River Systems, as well as NEC and NTT, while the LiPS Forum was formed by France Telecom, PalmSource (Access) ARM, Cellon, Esmertec, FSMLabs, Huawei Technologies, Jaluna, MIZI Research, Montavista Software, and Open-Plug.
Representatives of the big six did not respond to requests for comment as to how their foundation will work with these existing initiatives, or indeed why they saw the need to create another mobile Linux platform and API project.
It is also not clear whether the companies will develop their own mobile Linux distribution on top of the Linux kernel, or aim for application-level developments on top of one or more of the existing distributions.
Certainly mobile Linux vendors such as Montavista, Trolltech, Wind River, and Access were conspicuous by their absence from yesterday’s announcement, but if the project’s goals include reducing development and testing costs, then building on existing IP would make sense.
If that were the case, Montavista would be a leading contender given its existing MobiLinux partnerships with Motorola, NEC, Panasonic, and NTT DoCoMo, and its existing relationship with Samsung.
