The Opportunity of Mobile Linux in Danger

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday June 29, 2006 @02:21AM from the restore-the-scrambled-egg-to-wholeness dept.

Eugenia writes "I just posted an editorial on the state of Linux for cellphones. Currently, there are 6 different initiatives and alliances, all completely incompatible between them, and in my opinion this kills a great opportunity for a unified 'Linux platform' that can compete with Windows Mobile and Symbian S60. As for the existing released Linux phones, only MiZi Research has an SDK freely available to create a GUI application for it. Motorola sells thousands more handsets than MiZi does through Samsung, and yet they don't release their EZX SDK. C|Net also wrote today: 'while Linux had a lot to offer in comparison with proprietary systems, such as improved scalability and flexibility, it is lacking in other areas, industry watchers said. Ovum telecommunications analyst Tony Cripps said that Linux-based smart phones are currently inhibited by the lack of a standardized application environment for third parties to write to, unlike Symbian's offerings.'"

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we do by m874t232 · 2006-06-30 03:58 · Score: 2, Informative

Linux effectively has Gnome and KDE, and the two work together very well. That means at most two toolkits, with an active effort to integrate them.

That makes the situation better than, say, on Mac OS, which has Cocoa, Carbon, some Classic, and a lot of incompatible third party toolkits. And Windows has a baroque mix of 16bit and 32bit applications, various levels of Win32, and soon .NET, Avalon, and Vista.