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Handhelds Software Hardware Linux

Linux Headed For Smartphone Domination? 269

Posted by simoniker from the competition-is-none dept.
An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices has published a summary of research findings from Zelos Group that predicts that Linux is going dominate the smartphone market, beating out both Symbian and Microsoft. Zelos says that Linux scored highest on the two criteria that matter most to OEMs and carriers: openness and low cost. Microsoft scored lowest in these criteria. The article says Zelos believes Symbian beats Microsoft due to the flexibility of its licensing terms, and Microsoft prospects will be stymied to an extent by its desire to strictly manage how its brand is used. The conclusion: Linux will be the preferred operating system for connected devices."
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Linux Headed For Smartphone Domination? More

Linux Headed For Smartphone Domination?

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  • "They" already have Linux controlled radio's (Score:3, Informative)

    by OriginalSpaceMan ( 695146 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @05:53PM (#8092988)
    My wife was visiting a near by company (I can't say who) that has lots of hand-held an other types of radio powered by Linux. She said they seem to be very stable and easy to manage. Why not phones? The concept is already there...

  • you know what that means... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jaden ( 22302 ) * on Monday January 26, 2004 @05:53PM (#8092992)
    SCO files suit today against Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, Cingular, Nextel, Audiovox, Handspring, Hitachi, Kyocera, LG, Motorola, NEC, Neonode, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, VTech...

    Asked for a comment, SCO was quoted as saying "There's gotta be some blood in one of these stones."

  • I dunno.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday January 26, 2004 @05:55PM (#8093000) Homepage Journal

    The cost of a smartphone is high enough without having to add a $699 licensing fee payable to SCO..
    • actually, they only want $35 for embedded devices.
      • It's $32. With a link [eetimes.com] in case people have trouble remembering which crazy statements are made up by hecklers and which SCO actually meant to be semi-seriously uttered.
    • I think the most interesting part of your post is the fact that you are quoting the server price from SCO (the desktop price is $199 and there is an even smaller price for embedded devices). I'd like to know how you plan to use the SmartPhone as a server.

    • Re:I dunno.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RoLi ( 141856 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @08:31PM (#8094668)
      Maybe I'm not as easily entertained as the average Slashdot moderator, but I really don't understand why the same old jokes get modded up to 4 or 5 "funny" for months or even years.

      2002: Post "In Soviet Russia" joke - +5 Funny guaranteed
      2003: Post "I for one welcome.." joke - +5 Funny guaranteed
      And now the SCO-699$ licensing jokes... in every thread even remotely related to Linux. Maybe even several times...

      -1 Redundant, please guys.

  • Potential Bias (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Interruach ( 680347 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @05:55PM (#8093004) Journal
    We all point out how such studies are biased when Microsoft release them...
    Surely there's a chance that LinuxDevices has a bit of an interest in this?

  • any day now (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26, 2004 @05:55PM (#8093005)
    So with this phone, I get to grep for the girl's number I got last night, with Windows I get to grope the girl I met last night. Which one wins?
    • A lot depends on how much you had to pay for the girl^H^H^H^H phone -- and the problems with all the viruses and all.

      S

    • Re:any day now (Score:3, Funny)

      by iabervon ( 1971 )
      Actually, with Windows you expect to grope the girl, but, in fact, some script kiddie gropes her instead. But she thinks you groped her.
    • touch, finger, mount, and fsck with the Linux SmartPhone. With the Windows phone, you're risking a BSOD.

      On a different note, I know that the "girl" said she'd let you grope "her". I would suggest checking ALL of "her" ports carefully before going further. What should be an input might instead be an output.

    • I'm afraid you've got it all wrong. You have to grep before you can grope. In fact if you grope before you grep, you can end up with la grippe. [lyricsdir.com] . Especially if you grope in a group.

  • Tech history 101 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rockclimber ( 660746 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @05:56PM (#8093024)
    the best system does NOT alway win in the market.

    the domination of a market depends on marketing, lobbying, cash and quality of the product.
    so, linux has 1 out of 4. not bad, but still a long way to go
    • The lobbying, easy, it is done by the engineers at the companies making the phone.

      The marketing, easy, it is done by the marketing department of the people who make the phone. Who cares what OS it runs (aside from lots of people here)? As long as it does run.

      The cash, easy, that's a trick question. Linux is also free like beer. Well, there might be some work involved by the programmers at the various companies, but they've had most of the work already handed to them for free. :)
      • not sure about the other three beeing easy:
        >The lobbying, easy, it is done by the engineers at the companies making the phone.
        And no engineers descision is ever overturned by middle to upper management? ("I've heard that linux is _insert FUD here_")

        >the marketing, easy, it is done by the marketing department of the people who make the phone.
        right. OS is not a selling argument for the customer. but were talking B2B marketing here...
        and who has Herdes of salesforce running down the doors of
    • nor is the technically best system always the best system for the companies to use(because of corporate heritages, experiences with some systems & etc).

    • Say you're a product architect at a company that builds smartphones, and the CTO tasks you to survey what's in the marketplace. Which are you more likely to report back as your recommendation?

      1) We can license Symbian's solution, there are licensing fees to pay but the system is ready to ship today, and it's proven compatible with products x, y, and z already on the market, or

      2) We can roll our own mobile platform based on Linux, it'll require a team of developers and at least a year-long project to get

      • Re:Tech history 101 (Score:3, Insightful)

        by smallpaul ( 65919 )
        Your presentation ignores the fact that once you finish the Linux phone you have a perpetual royalty-free license and the source to make that meaningful. With the Symbian phone you must make the build or buy decision again and again every time you are presented with your yearly license fee.

    • Re:Tech history 101 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RoLi ( 141856 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @08:56PM (#8095024)
      If you compare Symbian, Linux and Microsoft:

      Symbian - pros

      • Large user base
      • already established on the market
      • large software library (but mostly via Java)
      cons
      • Licensing costs
      • Couldn't really lock the market because most development is done in Java, not natively in Symbian
      Linux pros
      • Easily developed on PC
      • Easily modified
      • More secure because the codebase has been tested on the Internet in production environments for years
      • A big software library (through Java) and a even bigger library on the PC that can maybe be modified to run on the smartphone (depending of course on the application
      • No license costs and also no license hassles. What many Winlots forget is that one of the big advantages of Linux is that you can start right away you don't have to buy and wait for development kits/licenses.
      • Linux is already used in the majority of embedded-systems projects that use an OS. Since many cellphone-makers also make embedded systems, standardizing on Linux could offer benefits.
      cons
      • Relatively new on the market.
      Microsoft - pros
      • It's from Microsoft, so it gets loads of gratious advertising, marketing and hype from everybody including Slashdot
      cons
      • Since Microsoft's stance toward Java is very uncertain and doubtful, you have pretty much no native applications at all
      • Microsoft's Java (aka .NET) hasn't been established on the market at all, there aren't many applications on the market. And the few that have been written are for the most part web-driven database frontends, not really anything that could be useful on a cellphone.
      • Currently all cellphones running with Windows/Stinger/whateveritscalledtoday have either been shut down before market introduction because of quality problems or haven't sold very well because of quality problems
      • Because of the general weakness of Microsoft cellphones, Microsoft is likely to discontinue them in a couple of years, just like Windows/Alpha, Hailstorm, the HomeR project and many many other Microsoft projects. We are not talking about IBM which supports their products virtually forever. Microsoft has shown many times that they don't care when their customers are stranded on an unsupported platform

      To sum up, the outlook for Linux looks very bright. Because most advanced cellphone apps are Java-apps and not Symbian-apps, Linux will be able to replace Symbian cellphones without much problems. Even if that weren't the case, the smartphone market is still young and small, Linux also could prosper without Java-compatibility.

  • Flexibility (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xot ( 663131 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `htaedeligarf'> on Monday January 26, 2004 @05:58PM (#8093043) Journal
    I think the flexibility that Linux provides to the manufacturers is the key factor in its being the OS of choice. Any OS that the hardware makers can use to their advantage to make the product more robust n fast will definitely be ahead in the race.Seriously doubt an Microsoft OS will give that kind of flexibility or 'openness'.

    • Re:Flexibility (Score:3, Interesting)

      by oob ( 131174 )
      I think the flexibility that Linux provides to the manufacturers is the key factor in its being the OS of choice.

      Device manufacturers who go the Linux route reap any number of benefits, but the one that struck when the Zaurus was released was their ability to immediately tap in to a large amount of readily available free software.

      I signed up for the development version of the Zaurus (the 5000d) and thanks to airmail believe that I was one of the first people in Europe to recieve one of these devices. Tw

  • Another reason for the husband to nag (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrsPReDiToR ( 736605 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @05:59PM (#8093054)
    Thanks! After drooling over his friend's smart phone that runs the 'evil' mircrosoft my husband now has an excuse to have a lovely linux smartphone top of his (insert occasion here) present list. Like he needed an excuse to bend my ears about how great Linux is!

  • Reguardless... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DaHat ( 247651 )
    Ultimately the market will decide, not a research study.

    Personally I don't care what my phone's OS is so long as it works, period. But then I've got simple requirements for my phone, I don't want/need it to do video, pictures, web, chat, etc.

    • Re:Reguardless... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dranga ( 520457 )
      Yes, but one other factor will be how cheap is it; if two phones do the same thing equally well, I think most will go for the cheaper one. And the phones should be cheaper if the cost to manufacture/program them is cheaper.
    • Yep, and time-to-market-with-new-features counts for an awful lot.

      Which platform is easiest to develop for?

      Thats a hard question, try this one:
      Which platform are you used to developing for?

      Lets try this one:
      How much development do you need to do?

      Now we are getting somewhere, how about this one:
      What's the shape of the market differentiation cost / value trade-off?

      How about this one:
      How well can your marketing department, project managers, developers and suppliers find and keep close to A sweet spot on t
  • I love Linux. I use MS software and their OS a fair bit too, but I love Linux. I really don't care what OS runs my devices though. My PC, I want it to run a GNU/Linux OS and other free software when possible. My phone? I just don't really care. Am I that unusual? I just want my phone to work well, and do all that the glossy advert promised that it would. As long as it does that, it can run CPM for all I care!

  • PC of the future (Score:2, Interesting)

    by randall_burns ( 108052 )
    When I got into the computer biz over 20 years ago, the first PC's were coming out. An older engineer said to me:

    "I don't know what the Personal Computer of the future will be like, but I do know what it will be called: the phone".

    Looks to me like Microsoft is caught in a squeeze play here: They have pretty much lost the server business--and now they are looking the market in smaller devices. I suspect Microsoft will be around for a while, but the hegenomy of Microsoft is already doomed(unless they do s

  • Uh right (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:00PM (#8093074) Homepage Journal
    "Zelos says that Linux scored highest on the two criteria that matter most to OEMs and carriers: openness and low cost. Microsoft scored lowest in these criteria. The article says Zelos believes Symbian beats Microsoft due to the flexibility of its licensing terms, and Microsoft prospects will be stymied to an extent by its desire to strictly manage how its brand is used. The concusion: Linux will be the preferred operating system for connected devices."

    I think what this person fails to understand is that the preferred OS is dictated by what customers spend their money on, not by the cost or the openness. That's not to say that Microsoft will win. But you all should remember that Microsoft is the least open and most expensive desktop OS out there, and it's well ahead of everybody else on the desktop.

    • Re:Uh right (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Bill Kendrick ( 19287 )
      For [some probably high percentage] of consumers out there, they don't think about, and usually don't care about, what "OS" is running on their phone.

      As phones become more like PDAs, this will change. But, the last time I bought a phone, it was mostly an issue of cost and form-factor. I took what I could get, software-wise.
      • Actually, I have for quite a few years now, bought phones based on the UI. After discovering Nokia's UI to be the best, I stuck with it for several iterations of hardware.

        When their UI got too complex, and not as friendly, I decided to shift (now have a T610 ... it's ok as far as UI goes, but not great, still too many clicks).

        I would love to have a more open system, because I can see problems with phone UI's and would love to be able to customize them, or at least make macro's or shortcuts to most needed

    • Re:Uh right (Score:5, Informative)

      by soft_guy ( 534437 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:15PM (#8093242)
      That happened in a totally different context. So much so, that the fact that MS currently has 90+% of the desktop market doesn't matter *at all* in the context of smart phones.

      For one thing, the maker of the phone puts both the OS and the apps on the phone. The user probably doesn't even know what OS the phone is running - or care. The phone maker is going to go with the smallest costs. That includes all costs, not just the license cost. Fortunately, Linux is not harder or more expensive to develop for than Windows CE. So, Linux has a good shot at being picked for any given implementation.
      • "For one thing, the maker of the phone puts both the OS and the apps on the phone. The user probably doesn't even know what OS the phone is running - or care. The phone maker is going to go with the smallest costs. That includes all costs, not just the license cost. Fortunately, Linux is not harder or more expensive to develop for than Windows CE. So, Linux has a good shot at being picked for any given implementation."

        You hit the nail right on the head, but then drifted away to a not so interesting point.
        • You're making the assumption that Microsoft's apps will be superior to Linux apps running on the phone. I do not believe there is any basis for this belief. App developers who need to make a Linux phone interoperate with Windows will be able to do that without any problems. Developers will hit whatever requirement that they are given in this regard. You want a Linux phone that syncs with Outlook? No problem. Palm does it, Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, LG, and Sanyo can too.

          Second, you are making an assumption
          • "You're making the assumption that Microsoft's apps will be superior to Linux apps running on the phone."

            I never made that assumption or that claim. I didn't say Microsoft would win. I was intentionally neutral in my post about who would win. The only point you should have taken from my original post was that the reasoning provided as to why Linux would win has very little actual bearing on how successful Linux will be in the marketplace. If you read that as "No, Linux will lose", then I apologize for
      • That happened in a totally different context. So much so, that the fact that MS currently has 90+% of the desktop market doesn't matter *at all* in the context of smart phones.

        Sure it does. PDA integration with the desktop is very important to consumers. Beyond the use of a smart phone as a PDA the non-business user will use it as a message terminal, game machine, music player, and so on. Easy integration with software on the desktop is at least as important to that type of user.

        About the only people

        • Yeah, its fucking impossible to integrate a device that isn't running windows CE with desktop Windows. That's why Palm never could sell any of their PDAs and no one could sync a Palm with Outlook.

          And Samba doesn't exist either.

          Yep, I guess Linux is totally screwed. 'Cause it would be impossible to get it interoperate with Windows at all!
          • I'm not saying that integration capabilities don't exist, but they don't get that shiny Windows logo that consumers who use Windows at home want to see as an assurance that everything will "just work".

            Palm sales took a huge hit after CE devices started appearing. Synching a CE device with a Mac or Linux box is possible, but a pain in the ass.

            Microsoft can raise barriers to integration at any point. A few strategic patents, some arbitrary format changes, and consumers view a non-MS smart phone as just to

    • fails to understand is that the preferred OS is dictated by what customers spend their money on, not by the cost or the openness

      This is most certainly wrong. It sounds fine on the surface but in reality what they spend money on is the stuff they can buy.

      Key here is what is the Nokias, Motorola of this world is going to offer their customers.

      They do not want Microsoft for obvious competitive reasons and they want the cheapest OS they can get that has the ability for them to offer robust services and mos

      • "Answer Linux and Java. End of story. The rest is just noise."

        Answer: Whatever product people pay for. End of story. The rest is just noise. If people are buying Microsoft's phones instead of Nokia's or Motorola's, then it really doesn't matter what the OS costs or how open it is now does it?

        Don't be so bull headed. History has shown, time and time again, the the technically superior product is rarely the winner.
    • The customer doesn't generally have any access to the OS at all. In fact, the programming interface to the Linux phones is supposed to be Java ME. They're mainly interested in using Linux because it makes a good JVM.

      It's possible that most Linux phones won't even have a shell, command-line-type programs, init, or /etc. The kernel doesn't dictate policy, so it's quite possible to have a very different userspace under Linux. There's nothing saying that a Linux phone would have to be a GNU/Linux phone, and it
    • I can assure you that 99.99% of phone users don't know which OS its phone has. It is a manufacturer thing, and if microsoft doesn't play its cards well, it will stay so for a long time, because this is not the desktop market; ms doesn't have any monopoly granted power to use against nokia et al. They'll have to compete by their own merits.
      The only advantage MS has is lots of money, which doesn't grant you the key for success, being this getting more money than you spend (see xbox).

  • Great news (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This shows Linux is getting ready for the LCD screen. The great thing about these smartphones is that they boot in less than ten minutes when they're running Linux, and with the kind of stripped down GNOME implementations being considered for these kinds of applications, you can fit the entire operating system into a 256M EPROM or Flash memory, with maybe 64Mb-128Mb of RAM for working in.

    Linux is also superior when it comes to hardware support - vendors of smartphones can easily add PCMCIA/Cardbus support

  • Whoohah! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by objwiz ( 166131 )
    Glad to hear it.

    Actually, this isn't all of that surprising. When I was working on settop box for Escient Labs [escient.com] (about 5 yrs ago), we talked with MS then about putting in the box. They were totally unflexibly about licensing etc....we ended up going with BeOS (unfortunately we couldn't sell a pure linux kernel to our managers because of a previous "bad experience". Long story--short version no one new what they were doing).

  • It's all about the size. (Score:5, Informative)

    by cduffy ( 652 ) <charles+slashdot@dyfis.net> on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:02PM (#8093096)
    I happen to know some very skilled embedded systems developers, and at least one (also a Linux kernel maintainer) recently lost a possible contract with a very large multinational company because Linux turned out to be too large for the environment they wanted to run it in.

    Hopefully VSTa [vsta.org] or a like open operating system better suited to very small environments (eCos? dunno) will become practical and popular for such usage. Linux is reasonable in larger embedded systems -- networking hardware and the like -- but its suitability becomes less and less as space constraints constrict (think 100K of RAM or less). Remember, it's not just the cost of the OS that's an issue -- the cost of the extra hardware to run it, and the loss of battery life, is also a dealbreaker.

    So no, I'm not convinced by this report; the summary makes it look too much like something concocted by talking to managers with insufficient engineering input.
    • If only your post was actually relevant to the discussion at hand....

      Since when is a "smart phone" an embedded device? Does the Treo have only 100K RAM?

      Smart phones are less embedded devices than they are shrunken multi-function devices. They've got more power than PC's from not too long ago, shnazzy color screens, and teenage girls to press their buttons.
      • Since when is a "smart phone" an embedded device?

        Eh? A PDA is generally considered to be a (large) embedded device; a smart phone is no doubt likewise.

        Smart phones are [...] shrunken multi-function devices.

        Granted -- so we're certainly far enough out of the 100K range that Linux is no longer utterly infeasible, but that doesn't mean that battery life and production cost stop being important factors.

        Certainly, there are folks who are willing to give up battery life and pay a bit more for snazzy featur

    • Re:It's all about the size. (Score:4, Informative)

      by kroyd ( 29866 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:42PM (#8093529)
      Well, integrated chips such as the Samsung SIP (System-in-Package) is 17x17x1.4mm, in that space you get 256mbit of SDRAM and 256mbit of flash RAM and a 203Mhz ARM CPU.. And even that is on the very low end when you look at what future smartphones will require. Some info on SIP [linuxdevices.com].

      I believe the majority of new smartphones introduced this year will have a 2mp or more camera, 240x320 or better resolution, of course a reasonably capable TCP/IP stack for playing online games, 3D accelration, etc.. 100K of ram is not enough, and it hasn't been enough for years. (100K of RAM is about what you have in a modern low end Nokia phone sold in Europe, and that is clearly not a smartphone.)

      So, it all comes down to which OS has the most features for the lowest price, and which fits on a computer that would have been considered high-end in the early '90s. If you start from scratch and plan to sell millions of your product, which you have to do to get a reasonable margin, using Linux is a rather obvious choice imho.

    • Your analogy has one gaping hole in it however; Moore's Law. So long as components keep on falling in price, don't bet against a platform just because it has a larger footprint and memory requirement than other platforms.

      Linux will succeed here, because it has very low licensing costs associated with it, and as these devices continue to add on features like wireless networking and Internet connectivity, a general purpose operating system will make even more sense in these smart phones.

  • More research facts (Score:5, Informative)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:03PM (#8093112) Homepage Journal

    Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold [itfacts.biz]

    Symbian owned two-thirds of the market [itfacts.biz], Microsoft - 14%, Palm - 13%

    HP is becoming the biggest name in the industry [itfacts.biz] with 33% market share globally, but Nokia has 78% in Europe, Middle East and Asia.

    • Re:More research facts (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      what exactly is counted as a 'smartphone' in those articles?
      is for example series60 phones 'smartphones'? as the 3million seems quite low if they are counted as smartphones, if they aren't counted in the number would be better to suite "full pda's with phone" variety(which pretty much won't get much more popular than what pda's are).

      besides than that there are models coming that quite obviously are MORE than a regular phone yet quite far from being a full pda like palm or a zaurus(and people much rather s
      • I believe they consider phones with PDA features counted as smartphones. Don't quote me on this, as the criteria seems to be vague, depending on whose research you read into.

        Since they define the smartphone OS market shares, I am assuming that one of the requirement would be for a phone to have its own OS (Symbian/Windows/Palm), as opposed to a single-app environment peculiar to older models.

    • Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold

      Yup, clocking in at just about 0.7 percent of all handsets sold. Not really indicative of a burgeoning trend, if you ask me.

      Just this morning I read an Associated Press article [sfgate.com] in the local paper talking about consumer backlash against overly complicated personal technology devices. A 180-page manual for a point-and-shoot digital camera. A DVD remote with so many buttons on it that there was no room for a decent-sized Pause button. Etc.

      Among the re

  • Has any of that Linux smartphones been already released on the market?

    I just want to know how long do I have to wait to switch my provider to get such a phone?

  • Well.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:06PM (#8093153)
    Now, right now, the market is pretty much dominated by Symbian - at least it is here in the UK, the three main phones running it being the Nokia 7650, and Sony Ericsson P800 and P900. O2 and Orange both have PocketPC and Windows Smartphones.

    How Linux fits into this is kinda interesting. For a start, there aren't (m)any smartphones on the market that use it yet (there are actually more Windows Smartphone models out there). Secondly, in the smartphone market, it will be the second generation of smartphones - the ones that appeal to people who buy for ringtones and interchangeable covers - that will drive the market, and I don't really see smartphones being that mainstream.

    To put it simply, the smartphone market - and it's user's needs and requirements - are incredibly fragmented. It's an area like cars and stereos; market saturation is so great that I don't think any specific OS will 'win out'.

    There will be many winners. For corporations needing .NET stuff on phones, it'll be MS, for mainstream, maybe Linux (but what flavor?), and for your PDA-stylee smartphone lover, probably Symbian or something similar. Either way, one mans smartphone capabilities is another mans excessive baggage...

    • Re:Well.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jodonoghue ( 143006 )
      I'm working on porting a real cellular protocol stack to Windows Smartphone as we speak.

      Despite being no fan of Microsoft desktop products, I have to say that in many respects, Smartphone is a very well thought out product. They have a slick, and very well designed UI, a decent set of apps, and a kernel which is relatively easy to get to work on a new platform.

      I agree with the poster who complains about the MS build system (dreadful), but it does the job, but the kernel itself really does have some good t

  • only one problem.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:08PM (#8093177) Homepage Journal
    linux might fit into the criteria, but few of the bigger _mobile-phone_ companies have been putting their plans toward symbian(nokia, sony-ericcson, even siemens has their sx1 too now).

    what I care more is that the system allows ME to install WHAT I WANT, linux isn't a magic bullet to that(actually if there isn't some co-operation the linux phones could end up pretty limited by design and with a shallow base of programs). the currently out symbian phones allow the programs a good access to the system(and the sdk's are available for free as in beer). sure it's nice to have the source code to the kernel but if you can't get your own apps into it(or able to replace any code running on the thing) it doesn't warm you much.

  • I don't think so (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ektor ( 113899 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:09PM (#8093190)
    Using Linux means that the phone manufacturer will need an army of developers and tons of resources to develop the specialized software that will run on top of the kernel. There's no way that would be attractive for most companies.

    On the other hand Windows Mobile (and to a lesser extent Symbian) provides a very comprehensive suite of applications and the foundation to develop whatever customization is needed. In that way the OEM can focus on doing what they know best: hardware and firmware. That's a huge value item considering the low cost of licensing.

    Anyway, time will tell.
  • we all know that microsoft has clearly proven that linux costs more! [linuxdevices.com] besides, who doesn't want a Start Menu on their phone?
  • lets face it linux runs fine on the ARM platform but you need an interface

    the interface is Java(VM)

    it has nice security app's and works across all the vendors

    Vodaphone shows that the networks like to control how the interface looks (branding)

    so what matters is the display and what ODM like (easy to make work)

    Microsoft have the fact that it works and is qualified many of the standards (dont screw up the network)

    linux fails many of of the standards because it has not been put through the tests it needs
  • Sure Linux may be really cheap or free to incorporate into their handsets, and it's openness allows the manufacturer to do whatever modifications they want, but the problem now is you have incompatible handsets despite them all running Linux. People cannot simply install an app on a Linux handset and expect it to work because there aren't strict guidelines. This is where the closed solutions have an upper hand.

  • The OS is one of the smallest pieces of the puzzle (Score:5, Insightful)

    by John_McKee ( 100458 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:13PM (#8093225) Homepage
    Yes, Linux is open, and it is free, but there aren't any distributions designed for cellphones that are open and free. When you license Sybian or Windows for Smartphone, you get EVERYTHING. You get a reference design for the hardware, a GUI, interfaces for common chipsets, LCD drivers specific for cellphones, etc, etc. Yes, I am aware that Motorola has released a Linux smartphone, but all of the important stuff is still closed source. When you use Linux you get an OS. That's it. A Company has to decide if building the rest from scratch is less than just licensing an OS that already finished the hard stuff. I am betting it often won't be.
    • A Company has to decide if building the rest from scratch is less than just licensing an OS that already finished the hard stuff.

      Depends on what 'building from scratch' would cost. A $30/phone licensing fee, for example, would pay for a lot of coders when you start talking about tens-of-thousands of phones. Companies are going to go with what is most cost-effective, not necessarily what is easiest.

  • Viability??? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tarwn ( 458323 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:14PM (#8093229) Homepage
    I find it very odd that "openness" and "cost"" were valued over business viability. I'm not questioning the decision (yet), but it looks odd to me that all points in the article lead to Linux. In my mind I always believed OEMs were after business viability first (they can always overcharge later).

  • Not anytime soon! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Atomic Frog ( 28268 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:15PM (#8093252)
    Those guys at Zelos don't know the market then.

    - Openness is desirable, but guess what, Symbian is essentially "open" to the phone developers. Linux has no advantage there.
    - Low cost. Yes, developers want low cost, but here's where the Zelos guys miss the boat. Low cost means the TOTAL, OVERALL cost, including missing market opportunities from slower time-to-market.
    Ask LG and others why they licensed bits of their software from Nokia.

    What costs you is the time to develop the product, NOT per device licensing costs. This is NOT a personal computer market where the OS license cost can make up a large percentage of the cost.

    Symbian works, it's good enough, it's from a consortium of the mobile phone makers, so it's relatively open and has easy licensing costs. Add to that the base of existing developers, it's hard to see how Linux will crack the market unless some extra whizz-bang functionality is added on the phones that Symbian can't support.

    Plus, almost no user cares what OS their phone runs.

    I had a chat with one of the prod. development managers from Nokia. He doesn't like the Windows-based products for mobile phones, but it _isn't_ for the reasons the Linux zealots expect. It isn't cost, and he didn't even mention "closed-source".
  • Yes. The weight of flexable licensing is far greater than that of executive golf games and kickbacks. My company has never overlooked the technical merits of a product for a couple of free lunches. Ri-ight.

  • Palm OS? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rufus211 ( 221883 ) <rufus-slashdotNO@SPAMhackish.org> on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:19PM (#8093288) Homepage
    What about palm for smartphones? As a longtime user of the Kyocera 6035 [kyocera-wireless.com] who recently upgraded to a Treo 600 [handspring.com] I've fallen in love with the palm-based smart phones. I've looked at some windows ones and they just have *too* much functionality so that it all gets confused and horribly complicated. I haven't looked much at Symbian based ones but they didn't seem to have as many features and certainly not the broad application base either Palm or Windows have. As far as Linux are there any smartphones out there based on it?

  • That's great and all but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <mark AT seventhcycle DOT net> on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:19PM (#8093293) Homepage

    But will my phone have apt-get or up2date on it? :)

  • Well overly optimistic.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JollyFinn ( 267972 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:20PM (#8093301)
    Nokia is practicly dominating the market, and other top players too go for symbian... This results that there will be large global pool for symbian applications soon... Another point is that number 1 mobile phone manufacturer (NOKIA) has stake in symbian so, they won't give up on it for linux. So atleast europe, asia and middle-east will go for symbian, instead of something else...

  • Microsoft didn't help things... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:21PM (#8093316)
    with their treatment of Sendo [eweek.com]... that case has caused most manufacturers in that field to think about whether they really really want to be technology partners with them...

  • Palm OS? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by isaac ( 2852 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:26PM (#8093363)
    What about Palm OS? Every single person I know with a "smart phone" has a Treo (mostly 600s, though I know a couple of early adopters with 180s and 300s).

    Maybe I'm misconstruing the definition of a "smart phone" - my Motorola i90 has a (useless) Java VM and some (crapulent) PIM apps like a datebook and memo pad. Does that make it a "smart phone"? If so, color me unimpressed. It's totally useless, as far as I can tell, and can't replace my Tungsten E.

    -Isaac

    • Every single person I know with a "smart phone" has a Treo (mostly 600s, though I know a couple of early adopters with 180s and 300s).

      You don't know many people in Europe with Smartphones, do you? Palm is an also-ran there.

  • what a ludicrous question... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum.gmail@com> on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:29PM (#8093377) Homepage Journal
    linux is headed for ____ domination. no seriously. i don't see the linux kernel, and its toolsets, and its entourage of libs, and its knowledge-pool, stopping any time soon. look how far it has come in 10 years. where will it be in 5?

    if there is one lesson to learn, it is that the power of people is unstoppable. it is a humble kind of peace indeed, two random computer geeks at different corners of the globe working on 'scratching an itch' together, but it is peace.

    so, linux on ____ device is pretty much irrelevant as a question, the question is "where won't linux be getting its huge?", but then ... the answer to that question isn't so fun to fantasize about, alas ...

  • Don't worry, Microsoft will win (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheNarrator ( 200498 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @06:47PM (#8093594)
    Motorola better start early and hire 500 Chinese developers to reverse engineer the Outlook sync because that's 9 times out of 10 why Microsoft wins every market they come into: Microsoft's undocument file formats. I can't believe how many times I've heard the "doesn't sync with outlook complaint" on many a non-microsoft pda forum.
    • I don't know if Micro$oft will win, but the Outlook sync issue is pretty critical if Linux (or Symbian or Palm) is going to play against Micro$oft in this arena.

      Personally, I'm able to avoid it -- my employer uses Exchange & Outlook is the default client, but I've been able to use Mozilla mail just fine & the Palm OS meets my calendar-contacts needs.

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