The battle lines are being drawn in a contest that will almost
certainly define the design of mobile phones over the next five
years.
Many in the industry will be pleased to see
the emergence of Linux and other open
source software as the basis of most mobile phone developments. But
if anyone thought the open source approach would do away with the
commercial battle for control of the mobile phone platform, they
are likely to be disappointed.
All the major software companies are lining up behind a set of
different so-called “standard” approaches to what will be the first
open source mobile phone platform.
Microsoft, Symbian – soon to be owned by Nokia – and Google are in
the contest, and last week Intel made its intentions clear when it
acquired a small but significant London-based Linux open source
software development company called OpenedHand.
The move is part of Intel’s open source project, called Moblin, for
its recently announced family of Atom processors. These are Intel’s
mobile internet device (MID) processors.
As part of this open source project Intel created a website to act
as a source of development tools, including source code for all of
the major components of the Moblin platform, documentation and
sample code.
With the
acquisition of OpenedHand, which also
has offices in Paris and Helsinki, Intel has gained a new resource
of open source mobile software platforms and has worked with Nokia,
One Laptop Per Child, OpenMoko and STMicroelectronics, as well as
Intel.
Intel’s plans for Linux and open source platforms sit alongside
other industry moves in the field of open source mobile phone
platforms. These include Nokia’s open source plans for the Symbian
OS,
the LiMo foundation and Google’s
Android OS.
The various groups may be offering open source software, but there
are subtle differences in approach. For example, the LiMo platform
is licensed through Collaborative Source using the FPL licence,
while Symbian OS is licensed through the Eclipse Public licence.
This means the LiMo platform is also based on the Linux kernel,
which has significant development resources behind it. “Strong
support from mobile operators shows the popularity of the LiMo
platform; however, Android’s momentum in the developer community,
backed by Google’s brand strength, should almost guarantee its
acceptance,” comments Sravan Kundojjala, an analyst at market
watcher Strategy Analytics.
With Google developing support for its Android open source mobile
platform and Intel putting together its own open source project,
the contest for the heart of the 4G mobile has only just begun.
Nokia’s plan to create a royalty-free OS for mobiles has turned the
cost model for software vendors on its head.
“Lower costs for the Symbian operating system spell bad news for
licensable rivals, such as Google Android and Microsoft Windows
Mobile,” says Bonny Joy, an analyst at Strategy Analytics.
Last November, a senior executive at Qualcomm told
EW that
an open software environment was critical for further development
of mobile phones.
Enrico Salvatori, vice-president and general manager for Qualcomm
CDMA Technologies Europe, was speaking to
EW following
Google’s proposal for an open software platform based on Mobile
Linux for mobile devices, which is called Android.
Google’s Android mobile OS is already royalty-free so the larger
threat is to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS.
The industry is waiting to see how Microsoft will react to the OS
challenge. One possible option is for it to cut the cost of their
licences.
So it is likely that the mobile market will have to come to terms
with more than one “standard” approach. What is more certain is
that the proprietary mobile operating systems of Microsoft, RIM and
Apple will have to adapt to the open source revolution to survive.