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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."
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?
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.
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.
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
"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."
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.
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.
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, 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
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.
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.
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.
I think Linux is a long way off dominating the desktop, mainly because Linux systems are relatively difficult to work with (eg. installing a hardware driver for a camera etc is beyond the capability of Joe Sixpack). This is not a problem in more restrictive systems (eg. servers and embedded systems) where Joe Sixpack does not have to fiddle.
Embedding Linux is way easier and more productive than, say, Windows CE. I do development for both and after doing some Linux stuff, WinCE work is just so depressing.
Compare: change 1 line of kernel code and get running.
Linux: 9 seconds compile etc to build a new kernel image. 6 seconds ethernet download and boot. 15 seconds total.
WinCE: Build 10+ **minutes** to do a full build because the partial build does not work reliably. 3 **minutes** to ethernet download/boot.
Class: who's going to get more work done in a day?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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".
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 Phone company XYZ?
> The cash, easy, that's a trick question. Linux is also free like beer.
you would not believe it (if you did'nt hear it), but the freeness is sometimes used against linux "you get what you pay for" etc...
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.
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.
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. --
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.
Oh no, not again.
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.
Have you ever tried to develop a J2ME application? Platform independence was indeed a nice idea for mobile applications, but the realities are quite harsh. Screen sizes, the number of colors or buttons, all these (and more) factors can vary from device to device. And the situation isn't improved by the fact that Nokia has included some of their own classes (the "Nokia UI API") to their J2ME implementation. Granted, the MIDP 1.0 spec is quite lacking, especially considering features required by games - still this tactic reminds me of that "other company"... you know, embrace and extend... This is why most J2ME games are made for a specific model.
However, even if getting a bit OT, I think you shouldn't give up on Java, but focus on the server side. There are situations where stability is preferred over slow startup times. IMHO, the mobile market isn't one of those.
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.