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Linux Headed For Smartphone Domination?
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."
Did anyone else NOT see this coming? Linux is already dominating in the server market and desktop market, not to mention the embedded market. It was inevitable.
FP
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 talk better than you fool!
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."
The cost of a smartphone is high enough without having to add a $699 licensing fee payable to SCO..
Trolling is a art,
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?
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?
Drunken sailor
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
Asked for a comment, SCO was quoted as saying "There's gotta be some blood in one of these stones."
If you squeeze a stone hard enough, you'll break your hand.
The coolest voice ever.
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'.
Lord of the Binges.
actually, they only want $35 for embedded devices.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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!
It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
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.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I have had core dumps on symbian and linux driven devices always. MS on the other hand seems very stable. wonder why. openness? my foot!
Microsoft has a foothold in the office software/game console markets, and Symbian in the orgasm machine buisness, so I wouldn't worry too much about these two companies.
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!
Sign the FSF's Anti-DMCA petit
Note the name of the company who did this study!
Zelos -- now increment the last letter by one
Zelot -- whats that sound like when pronounced?
that's right, zealot!
now, who's the worst kind of zealot?
the LINUX ZEALOT... this study was made by linux zealots... so of course it would be favorable
the Cabal of Renegade Linux Fanatics (CRLF) strikes again!!!!!
[/conspiracy-theory]
They'll think I've lost control again and leave it all to evolution. -- Supreme Being, Time Bandits
"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 something like they did in the last presidential election and buy a lot of politicians).
"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.
"Derp de derp."
Manufactured in Taiwan or China
Programmed in India
Customer support in India or where else is cheap
Use inexpensive operating system
What's so hard to see about the trends here? Even Redmond at some point must start thinking about how much of what they do there can be done overseas. (Just heard over the holidays that Dow Chemical will be putting half its engineers over seas, particularly in India for 24 hour engineering of projects.) When's Bill going to drop the first shoe? I think it's going to happen.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Linux is also superior when it comes to hardware support - vendors of smartphones can easily add PCMCIA/Cardbus support, Ethernet jacks (using a wide variety of popular chipsets), and USB ports, without needing to write entirely new drivers. Linux's advanced APM support will also help - it's quite possible to imagine a Linux smartphone device that can wangle a day and a half of stand-by time out of an ordinary cellphone battery.
Glad to hear it.
Actually, this isn't all of that surprising. When I was working on settop box for Escient Labs (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).
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 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.
i think this whole linux thing is getting out of hand..
all of these devices using code that is available to everyone sounds like trouble.
Article over at LinuxDevices.com: "Motorola has launched its first embedded Linux/Java smartphone, the much-anticipated A760, in the Asian market."
Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold
Symbian owned two-thirds of the market, Microsoft - 14%, Palm - 13%
HP is becoming the biggest name in the industry with 33% market share globally, but Nokia has 78% in Europe, Middle East and Asia.
Does that not hinder distribution of a Linux phone since the source code must be posted?
By the way - did Linksys/Cisco ever post the modified Linux source code they use in their consumer routers?
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.
According to those two criteria (cost and open-ness), shouldn't Linux dominate every market? The fact is, two criteria aren't enough to make a fair analysis. What about usability? Appearance? Yeah, it's stupid, but these are the kind of things that really matter: what customers actually want, not what vendors want.
Never mistake "can" for "should".
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?
Now every time I go to the movies I'll have to type "sudo halt" instead of just powering down the phone.
But did they consider TCO????
- CP
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.
.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...
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
The Blue Screen of Death (actually more like a little pop-up tells you your phone software bombed, would you like to report, then you get a diagnostic message back that it was caused by a driver.)
or
Segfault, core dumped.
"Honest, I tried to call in but I got a segfault!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Drunken Sailor
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.
OK, so it's quite easy to buy a PC running linux, handhelds already run linux, smartphones will be running linux (well, occording to the article), but buying a portable without paying a microsoft tax is just plain impossible. When will that barrier fall?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
we all know that microsoft has clearly proven that linux costs more! 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 vendor support in this !
and the BSP for OMAP with GSM is non existant this needs to be improved
WRS could win these easy for linux just by providing a JavaVM and various linux BSP's that support the standards (quality confirmed mate got to have it)
networks like Java and if people could come up with a nice java app to make them money (GPS/ location aware through cells) from ads/services then away you go
regards
John Jones
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.
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.
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).
Whee signature.
Developers will Reassess Value of Java -- While vendors highlight support for device middleware such as Java developers will shift their focus to develop natively for full feature OSes as their installed base grows. Developers will be attracted to consistent implementation, higher performance and less restrictive native platforms.
Since the mobile market was being played up as the last guaranteed playing ground for Java, maybe it is time to give up my Java skills? :-/
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
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 most importantly differentiation.
Answer Linux and Java. End of story. The rest is just noise.
Help fight continental drift.
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.
most users just like that Windows Mobile has all thier MSN contacts, since MSN IM is installed already when they got that new PC, and works so much like the familiar enviroment. What is most important to OEMs? It isnt low-cost or openness, its sales.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Today: Recommendations(read "a must have") made by Japanese NTT DoCoMo, made embedded Linux the OS of chiose for all 3g Foma phones manufacturers for 2004. Some other handsets run Linux as well. And one day everything will migrate to 3G... Tomorrow: As for PDAs and phones, IMO there should be no such thing in the future. First it was cellular comunication integrated in PDAs and some basic applications on handsets. Then 802.11 and VoIP, and then "nomadic" networks.(802.16 and such) You'll have one device for all your communications and productivity needs. And I strongly believe that the market share of future devices like this, running under Linux will be very high.
MCI (formerly WorldCom)? I realize they're still in bankruptcy, but let's face it: they're too big for the government to let them collapse (and it keeps giving them contracts). I'd say that's a blood-filled stone if ever I saw one.
What about palm for smartphones? As a longtime user of the Kyocera 6035 who recently upgraded to a Treo 600 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?
But will my phone have apt-get or up2date on it? :)
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
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...
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
with their treatment of Sendo... that case has caused most manufacturers in that field to think about whether they really really want to be technology partners with them...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
With smartphones, manufacturers will be choosing Linux for their benefit, not the users.
A phone is a consumer device, it's not expected to be open for people to fiddle with. If the companies dictate that a smartphone is destined to become an appliance, then the openness of Linux goes with it.
Case in point; remember that really popular OS (can't remember the name) that runs washing machines, hi-fi's and videos? There's something like a billion devices running it and I only heard about it a few months ago. Joe Consumer will view Linux the same way.
This development will enable Linux to dominate the
VibraCall phones market beating out sybian.
I think Symbian have better chances then Linux for smartphones, at least nearest several years (5-6). Not only it have installed base already, it also a system tailored for smartphones. It has modular kernel and extremly defensive memory managment, nothing like this in Linux (yet). The concept is that app should run for years without single crush. Linux will probaly be a niche OS for bigger, powerfull handheld bordering on be a wearable PC.
preach on, brother.
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
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
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.
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?
... the answer to that question isn't so fun to fantasize about, alas ...
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 corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
....that matter most to OEMs and carriers: openness and low cost. Microsoft scored lowest in these criteria.
way to load your questions there buckaroo bonzai..
I think I'll come out with a survey asks OEMs questions like "ease of existing integration" and "current availability and deployment ease" I think I'll get very different answers. You know I'm really sick of hearing all this "coulda woulda shoulda" shit from Linux zealots. You nimnods roll out a standard flavor like Symbian and Microsoft has and maybe you'll get more respect from these "OEMs" you talk about cause all they are concerned with is making money, and tinkering and tweaking with bullshit linux distros to go on a phone wastes money when they can simply slap on a Symbian or MS solution.
not a flame but the God damn fucking truth.
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. . Especially if you grope in a group.
Someone you trust is one of us.
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.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
When you license Sybian or Windows for Smartphone, you get EVERYTHING.
Everything but the girl, that is.
"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.
"Derp de derp."
You're an idiot. It's used in embedded systems all over the place. I write code for embedded Linux on a daily basis, and lots of people use it.
I guess to you, OS = GUI. It must suck to be so dumb.
[Please pardon my ignorance if Everybody Already Knows This.]
I got a cell phone (Mot v60i) about a year ago. I enter in the directory a bunch of the numbers I frequently dial. Works great for my universe of about 20 numbers.
Once in a while I need to lookup a number of a restaurant, doctor's office, etc.. Not lugging the white pages whereever I go, my only current option is to make a call to information and get charged some fee to find out the number.
Isn't there some way of having a cheaper directory lookup service based on text and scrolling of viewing the white pages online without needing to callup some human?
Just seems like it should be so...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
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.
... it's ok as far as UI goes, but not great, still too many clicks).
When their UI got too complex, and not as friendly, I decided to shift (now have a T610
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 functions.
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.
Does it use Bluetooth to automatically sync phone numbers with one's Outlook address book stored on their Windows XP box? Didn't think so...
Just this morning I read an Associated Press article 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 research facts cited in that article, a Yankee Group study shows that 50 percent of consumers postpone purchases on new gadgets because they think the new ones will be too hard to use. Also, 25 percent of consumers thought they had a high-definition television when they didn't. (I can personally count my own mother among these; more accurately, the store sold her an HDTV-ready digital TV, but without any hardware to receive HDTV signals. She thinks the picture looks great.)
Personally, I have absolutely no use for a digital camera built into my cell phone. I have little, if any, use for a color screen on same. I don't play games. Custom ring tones have limited utility. I think, like most people, I find PDA features useful mostly insofar as I can keep all my phone numbers -- where? Why, in my phone, so I can dial them. And then back them up to my computer. That's about it. That's about all most people want.
To switch to Devil's Advocate mode: to be perfectly honest, I do actually own a Smartphone. It's a Kyocera QCP-6035. Among other things, I keep the BART (light rail) schedule on it, and an application that has the addresses and phone numbers of local businesses, and movie listings. I check my email on it occasionally. It's very handy, and I'll probably replace it with another Smartphone when it dies.
But most people who see it think it's a goof. Even when I can pull up the movie schedules so we can catch a show that same afternoon, right on time, the thought never ever crosses their minds to get a similar gadget. They'll just pick up the local free weekly to get their movie listings, like always.
Can I blame them? This thing's a big, honkin' piece of plastic! They see it, they think it's an embarrassment, and they ain't wrong. There's plenty of times when I've wished I just had a plain old regular phone that dialed numbers and had a little screen for caller ID, and that's it. Especially if it was the size of a stubby fountain pen.
In sum: I'm not one of these people who thinks Linux is going to dominate Smartphones. I do not think it will. But even if it did -- is dominating yet another niche geek market really that big of an achievement?
Breakfast served all day!
Problem is that linux phones haven't even appeared on any major markets yet. The motorolla phone is for Asian markets only and aparently it still has issues to be worked out.
I know trolltech announced that they had several deals with cellphone companies, but so far none of them surfaced.
Does anyone have details on what other manufacturers are working on linux phones and when those might be released?
Serve WAP and WML content automatically from your existing Apache web server.
The reason I am excited about Linux on cellphones, isn't so much about Linux, but about the possibility of maybe the phones themselves becoming open and easily hackable, thus leading to some "underground" standards. I would love to have the source code to what my phone runs.
Here's one example...
Right now, you have to assume that a phone conversation is not secure. The Powers That Be don't want them to be secure, and they will pressure manufacturers to prevent security from becoming mainstream. And that leads to the usual problem of: even if you trust your government (?!), if you make it weak enough for the government to crack, you're probably making it weak enough for other people to crack it too.
So it's not just Echelon listening to you talk to your girlfriend. Your wife's boyfriend is listening too! ;-)
But what if phone code were open and free? Imagine GPG integrated into your phone. You call someone, maybe add a little handshaking, it realizes that it's talking with another phone that happens to be running compatable software, exchanges public keys, verifies the public key against your locally-stored WoT, and uses that to exchange your AES256 session key.
Governments would have a fit if Samsung sold a million phones that come with software that does that. But stopping a free software project that could be loaded onto mainstream phones, would be hard.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
IBM is providing the cash and marketing, so it's just quality where Linux has to catch up to Windows CE. In this case, though, cost is likely to be the biggest thing, and so Linux has a very good chance at domination. Windows CE licensing fees are reasonable, but with very small margins and very high volumes they are very unwelcome nonetheless.
to become a sysadmin just so they can answer a phone call...
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.
Da Blog
Well, I know they say Symbian will beat SmartPhone because of its licensing stuff, but as a consumer I find myself more drawn to SmartPhone because it has more software (being very similar to PocketPC, I've seen a lot ported over). Symbian, as far as I can tell, doesn't have as much third party free software. I may be wrong, but I thought I'd throw in my opinion as a consumer considering buying a next generation phone.
I'm having trouble grappling with grokking the grep/grope groblem. Sorry, I'll go back to naming GNOME projects now...
True story.
Bill Gates must be the first and only person in the world to have gotten laid because of windows.
HTTP/1.1 400
In other news today, smoking has been found to be harmful to humans and everyone is expected to quit smoking very soon.
You do realize that Motorola largest and splashiest phone release of the last year was the Moto MPX200, a Microsoft Smartphone-based phone? And the Nokia doesn't ship any Linux phones at all, and has no interest in doing so?
In a Windows enviroment for the most part you're locked into something with really no way improve it due to it's proprietary nature.
However Linux people have choice in what they do with their systems and IF they're locked into something.
Plus capitalism says if windows = more royalties and Linux = no royalties which you go with.
This explains the easy domination of GSM vs CDMA in the cellular markets.
You might very well be right on Nokia but they are regarded as the MS of Handsets and the other guys Notably Japan Inc plus Samsung is afraid of using Symbian.
The momentum for the Non-Nokia world favors Linux so they will win and the rest will fall in line, if nothing else for cost reasons.
The battle will be at Application level and Java has a strong position there. The underlaying OS will be somewhat irrelevant, again favoring the Free / free alternative.
Help fight continental drift.
The phone manufacturers are scared to death that Microsoft is going to take over the phone industry like it has taken over desktops, and they are going to be in the position of Dell and all the other OEM's where Microsoft gives orders and they obey.
My Symbian P800 has adequate English handwriting recognition (though 'x's and 'f's are a bit tricky).. Is there a project to bring good HWR to Linux?
(and I'm not gonna go and learn a new alphabet to communicate with my PDAfone.. it's technology's job to conform to me, not the other way round...)
That has already been tried, and people didn't buy them.
Why?
For one they are more expensive (pretty stupid for Microsoft to think they can break into a market with a more expensive product), then they are unreliable and buggy (as often reported with Orange's Microsoft-based cellphones) and they don't come with a quality brand like Nokia.
So your constant scenarios about people buying MS-smartphones like crazy is just wishful thinking on your part.
"So your constant scenarios about people buying MS-smartphones like crazy is just wishful thinking on your part."
I never made a scenario that people are buying MS-smartphones. Nor have you refuted anything I have said. Are you sure you're responding to the right post?
"Derp de derp."
However, reality of course is reversed. People do care about OS-openness because that 20$ royalties translate to about 30$-100$ increase in retail price depending on how expensive the sales channel is.
If the consumer has to choose between two roughly equivalent cellphones and one costs 30-100$ more than the other, which one will they take? Especially if the cheaper one can run thousands of Java-apps and the other can't?
Added to that is the uncertainaty about royalties (= can go up anytime) and about the general product (= can be discontinued just like Windows on Alpha which disappeared with just one week(!) warning) which makes it pretty unattractive for cellphone makers and is the cause that usually there is no MS-based cellphone to choose from in the first place...
And Linux is an easy lay.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
coming soon to a phone hear you
Doesn't linux combined with something like Qtopia provide something similar to what Symbian/Windows provide. Granted, Qtopia is not open source (as far as I can tell) but at least companies don't have to build everything from scratch.
I dunno... I for one love Linux for servers and desktops.. but for cellphones, i think we already have a decent solution.... Symbian.
Yes I know its closed source, Microsoft, etc... However, it is created by a consortium of companies who are the experts in the industry (Nokia, Psion, Ericsson, SonyEricsson, Samsung). As such no one company can have total control of it.
Also remember here in Europe (and largely the rest of the world, except north america) things are vastly different to the USA way of doing things. There is a culture of Text Messages (SMS). Having MSN Messenger on the phone is not as widely looked for, as opposed ot the best MMS/SMS features.
Already Symbain has fostered a coorperative nature. My SOny Ericsson p800 can communicate well with a Nokia 3650, transfering ringtones, and pictures with ease. The bluetooth stack on Symbian is impressive. MS was known for appalling/non existant Bluetooth stacks. Its Text message/E-Mail/Organiser facilities are standardised, as with its SyncML capabilities. Its installation system is also streamlines (SIS files)
Had we not had a acceptable solution, then surely Linux woudl have been a perfect answer, However, we already haev a standard battle hardened solution.
Havign linux on the smartphone arena, implemented by different companies, in different ways will probably only lead to different standards. Imagine it, software for Linux smartphones in rpm, deb, tar.gz, jar, xpi.. just because each company wishes to be different. And before you start comparing with the desktop.. remember its not so easy to change your operative system on a cellphone, and with limited memory u cannot support everything under the sun (battery life/size factors)
The only way i can see that Linux will succeed in the SmartPhone arena is if the industry teams together to form a consortium and develop standards. However, i see very little incentive for them to do that, since there is already Symbian
Have a nice day!
One can make any mobile phone "smart" with turbo. Open os, gpled apps, hwd ports, a/d converter, i2c, etc.
not entirely true...
>and is loved by the management because management loves standardizing wether it makes sense or not.
I disagree... Most management like someone to point the finger at if it all goes horribly wrong first(save your own arse). Then management likes to be sent to make 'cost-cutting moves' such as platformisation. Then management like to be seen to be 'ahead of the curve' by taking 'risks' that pay off...
It's not end-users who decide what OS their smartphone runs, it's the handset maker. You can count on their technical staff to think very carefully about this, because their jobs depend on it. Linux has the PR advantage here, because linux is popular among developers.
As for lobbying and cash, I suppose Microsoft COULD try bribes, but I don't think they will. Not because of any moral fibre, it's just too risky.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
..but well you're right, symbian seems to join the race, thx for the correction. the last time(~3 months ago) I've seen docomo recomendations for design of foma phones, it was like this: baseband - usually with mITRON and application cpu(omap, sh) with general purpose os, and the only mentioned one was linux. Out of six manufacturers in Japan making WCDMA phones only NEC, Panasonic and Fujitsu are successful.(in the order of appearance) NEC have choosen linux and recently joined 3g R&D with Panasonic. Use of Symbian is probably to ensure europe as a future market for japs.
> linsux is not dominating anywhere
Linux seems to be dominating your mom, but she likes it that way, so it's not a problem. Linux is versatile like that.
> why does linsux users all have hary palms
They can masturbate all they want, because their system works, instead of spending all their lives loading patches & fixes and killing the daily viruses.
Better question: How does you not english spelling and speaking well? Because you're an idiot.
(BTW, don't mod me down, mod someone else up -- there are plenty of posts more deserving of your time & points)
Actually, you exaggerate slightly. You get a very good set of sample device drivers, sample BSPs for some commercial cards and a few other bits, but you don't quite get everything.
For one thing (very pertinent to a smartphone), you probably won't get much of a protocol stack - which is fine, as you're supposed to provide that for yourself. What you do get (on Windows Smartphone for sure, Symbian, I'm pretty sure) is a well designed interface between the application layer (which is provided) and the protocol stack.
Of course, if you go to an OEM (Qualcomm, Nokia, TI, Infineon or whoever), you'll also get the protocol stack and a complete reference design - and few people ever stray far from the reference.
Despite a few glib comments that 'Linux runs Java, and that's all you need', Linux does not have a standardised smartphone UI (please don't say X: I love it, but I'm unlikely to need full network transparency to my telephone...)