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In November, when the two Japanese electronics giants NEC and Panasonic announced that they would be developing 3G phones based on a mobile version of Linux, there was a sense that the open source operating system had officially jumped to a new level.
In November, when the two Japanese electronics giants NEC and Panasonic announced that they would be developing 3G phones based on a mobile version of Linux, there was a sense that the open source operating system had officially jumped to a new level.
Even though another major phone maker Motorola had announced in 2003 that it was abandoning the Symbian operating system in favour of Linux-based handsets, it was only with NEC and Panasonic's decision that they would be making devices for the hugely popular Japanese NTT DoCoMo service that observers concurred that mobile Linux was now likely to reach critical mass.
However, what has become clear is that interest in Linux as a mobile phone operating system varies across the globe, with the attitudes of platform vendors in North America and in Asia contrasting with that of many of their European counterparts who have favoured the Symbian operating system - majority-owned by global leader Nokia.
Outside of Europe, where mobile phone makers trade heavily on their brands, operators hold much more sway. Networks such as DoCoMo have long insisted on customers taking proprietary handsets with customised features. And Linux, by offering access to the platform source code, is one way in which manufacturers are able to meet this need, in both the look and feel and the functionality of their smartphones or other portable devices.
That is not the situation with Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Symbian. Windows Mobile (as with its predecessors Windows CE and Pocket PC) defines strict rules that govern interface design. As a result, phones running the Microsoft operating system always have to bear the hallmark of Windows, no matter how much an operator might want to customise the interface to reflect a different brand.
Slightly more flexible than Windows, Symbian has two main interface options - arcanely known as Nokia Series 60 and UIQ and backed by Ericsson and SonyEricsson - that allow greater customisation. For example, Vodafone's recently launched 3G handset from SonyEricsson encompasses much more of a Vodafone identity than a Symbian look and feel to it.
Nonetheless, manufacturers such as Motorola point out that Linux has far fewer hard and fast rules. At zero licence cost, it is also significantly cheaper than either Symbian or Windows Mobile which add around $5 to the price of a phone. NTT DoCoMo has said that all its 3G phones in the future will run either Linux or Symbian, and Linux phones have made inroads into the cost-sensitive Chinese market.
The right stuff?
The first Linux-based products to emerge from Motorola (the E680, A760 and A768) went on sale in the third quarter. The devices are based around a version of Linux developed by Norwegian software company Trolltech.
Sales of Linux-based phones remain small to date. Consultants at research firm Strategy Analytics expect worldwide sales of Linux smartphones to reach around 1.1 million units worldwide this year, in contrast to the 14 million that use the most popular platform, Symbian. However, both figures represent a relatively small fraction of the overall mobile phone market, so there is still plenty to play for.
Some analysts, however, remain sceptical about the outlook for Linux as a mobile platform. Outside of phones, Linux-based devices have failed to make inroads into the PDA market, with Sharp the only major manufacturer to go down the open source route.
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"HP had a Linux version of the iPAQ but it went nowhere, and the Sharp device has foundered," says Gartner mobile computing analyst Ken Delaney. "You have Microsoft and Palm as PDA platforms, and maybe RIM [the company behind the BlackBerry]. People want to be in one of those communities, because of the software."
And without software, neither PDAs or smartphones will thrive. Delaney points out that the desktop PC and server markets have relatively few hardware platform choices, whereas there are dozens, if not hundreds, in the mobile phone market. This means that developers planning to write software for Linux would have to test their programs on literally thousands of different hardware combinations.
This is expensive and complex, not to mention time consuming, making it very difficult to justify, at least at this stage when the potential market is currently small. Nor is the open nature of Linux - cited as a key advantage in the server space - always so useful when it comes to devices such as smartphones.
Moving target
The rapid turnover in handset models, with manufacturers typically releasing new phones every six months, gives operating systems with tightly-defined interface guidelines and a good set of APIs an advantage over looser, albeit more flexible alternatives. Developers also know that they have an assured potential market if they develop for Windows Mobile, Symbian or Palm.
For European businesses, the lack of Linux smartphones on the market means that developing internal applications to exploit the platform is not yet an option, even if those applications already run on Linux or a proprietary Unix elsewhere in the business.
Here, the Microsoft platform has a distinct advantage, as developers used to working with the desktop and server operating system and related development tools will find the learning curve for Windows Mobile less steep. Meanwhile, Symbian cannot be dismissed, because it runs on the most popular handset models, and Palm still has a strong installed base.
None of these factors have prevented Linux from gaining share in many other highly competitive markets, but the prospect of Linux conquering the mobile platform market, in Europe at least, looks less certain.
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