Brad Smith article

I guess the OpenMoko community need to work on the PR skills, perfect opportunity for a mention and it got totally glossed over.

 

 

 

EDITORIAL EDGE:

01C77D2B.99EE5E70" align=left hspace=10 vspace=5 alt="Brad Smith" v:shapes="_x0000_s1026">Opening Up the Wireless Handset
By Brad Smith, Wireless Week Technology Editor

I don't like to be one to hype a technology, but you have to feel the energy building behind Linux for mobile phones. Part of that is due to the announcement by smartphone maker Palm it will use Linux in future phones.

Palm's news, which came during an analyst call on the company's financials, was interesting for two reasons. First, people (myself included) have been wondering what Palm was going to do with its user-friendly Palm OS. Palm essentially acquired the latest OS, a 5-year-old version called Garnet, from Access, which purchased PalmSource. Apparently Palm wanted Garnet to be able to support its use on the current crop of Treos, but it looks like Garnet will not father a child.

CEO Ed Colligan says Palm now plans to use Linux in future Treos so the handsets can handle both voice calls and data at the same time. Colligan says Palm also will continue to make Treos based on the Microsoft Windows Mobile OS, which have been pretty successful over the last year or so. Colligan also predicted the worldwide smartphone market will grow to a $36 billion business by 2009 and Palm wants a bigger global share.

Palm's announcement, of course, also was of interest as an example of the building interest in recent months in the use mobile Linux. The analyst firm ABI is predicting major growth for mobile Linux in the years ahead. In a report before Palm's announcement, ABI said more than 127 million Linux handsets will be sold by 2012, compared to 8.1 million this year.

"Linux in the cellular phone is not a question of 'if', but 'when'," says ABI research director Stuart Carlaw.

There are a number of other options for mobile Linux, including Trolltech's GreenSuite and the Access Linux Platform (why didn't Palm go with it?). And Nokia, which has been getting more and more into open source software, also has joined the Linux Foundation. Nokia uses Linux in its Internet Tablet, a version of which could wind up on Sprint's WiMAX network. Nokia also has started distributing a software developer kit that can be used to make it easier to port Linux projects to Symbian OS smartphones.

It all spells growing interest in mobile Linux. As IMS Research analyst Alison Bogle says, handset manufacturers cannot afford to ignore Linux for future handsets. Time will tell, but Linux apparently is going to become a bigger force in the mobile world.

What do you think? Let me know at brad.smithadvantagemedia.com" title="mailto:brad.smithadvantagemedia.com">brad.smithadvantagemedia.com.

 

 

I already did – he’s actually written about OpenMoko before (he sent me a copy of his article (see below).

Not sure why he chose not to mention it in this article.

 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: michaelmichaelshiloh.com [mailto:michaelmichaelshiloh.com]

> Sent: Thursday, 12 April 2007 8:59 PM

> To: Dean Collins

> Cc: OpenMoko Community List

> Subject: Re: Brad Smith article

>

> On Thu, 12 Apr 2007, Dean Collins wrote:

>

> > I guess the OpenMoko community need to work on the PR skills, perfect

> > opportunity for a mention and it got totally glossed over.

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > EDITORIAL EDGE:

> >

> > Opening Up the Wireless Handset

> > By Brad Smith, Wireless Week Technology Editor

> >

> .....

> >

> > What do you think? Let me know at brad.smithadvantagemedia.com.

>

>

> Very interesting, as this speaks to the more common consumer.

>

> At the end of the article Brad invites feedback.  It would be great if someone

> with the appropriate skills could respond to Brad and let him know about

> OpenMoko.

>

> Michael

 

 

Sent: Thursday, 12 April 2007 5:58 PM
To: Dean Collins
Subject: RE: OpenMoko Neo

 

Yes, I have, Dean. I wrote about OpenMoko in my last ETF newsletter –

 

Democracy Hits the Mobile Phone

By Brad Smith

The average selling price of a mobile phone keeps going down while the top five manufacturers continue to squeeze out the smaller players. So, why would any company want to get into the handset business, and I’m not talking about Apple̵7;s iPhone.

About 1 billion phones were sold in 2006, but 84 percent of those were sold by Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson, according to Telecom Trends International. The other manufacturers actually had a negative 19 percent growth in 2006.

This shrinking competitive field might discourage some, but not a company called OpenMoko and its partners. OpenMoko is a corporation but it217;s more of a community that makes one think of the early days of the Internet and geeks working in their garages. It’s been in development for some time but just recently came out with its first smartphone, although for a select audience.

OpenMoko is the brainchild of a self-described “surfer boy who wound up washed ashore in Taiwan.” It is an open source mobile communications platform using Linux at its heart. Its main partner is the Taiwanese device manufacturer First International Computer (FIC), which has started producing the Neo1973 handset running the OpenMoko platform.

The first handsets, just a few dozen, have been distributed free of charge to those in the developer community to play with. More will go on sale by the end of the month, again targeting open source developers, at a cost of about $350. Then, sometime in September if plans work out, OpenMoko handsets will hit some retail outlets as well as being sold online.

What I know about the Neo1973 is based on what I’ve read on OpenMoko’s wiki and webpage. It’s a quad-band GSM phone so it will work anywhere in the world. It has GPS built in, a 2.8-inch VGA touch screen (take that, iPhone), an application manager (through partner Funambol) and standard PIM applications like e-mail, contacts and calendar.

OpenMoko was born in the brain of Sean Moss-Pultz, the aforementioned surfer dude. He says OpenMoko will take mobile handsets into a world that is as open as the PC, where 220;mobile applications are equally as diverse and more easily accessible221; than they are now.

“Ringtones are already a multi-billion dollar market,221; Moss-Pultz says. “We think downloading mobile applications on an open platform will be even bigger.221;

OpenMoko isn’t the only outfit working on mobile Linux, which actually has a larger ecosystem than one might expect. Among the companies already out there are A La Mobile, Trolltech, PalmSource and Motorola. Nokia is deeply involved in the open source Eclipse Foundation, as is Motorola. Panasonic and NEC are the leading handset manufacturers using Linux.

I have no idea what OpenMoko’s business plan is, assuming it has one. And I’ve got no idea if OpenMoko will succeed in finding what likely will be a niche market. But what makes it attractive, at least at the gut level, is its seeming wide-eyed, brash but innocent, democratic view of what a mobile phone should be. That’;s refreshing.