Companies Strive to Increase
Adoption of Linux® for Mobile; Speed Innovation for Wireless
LIBERTYVILLE, Ill, TOKYO, YOKOHAMA, Japan, SEOUL, South Korea and NEWBURY,
England --15 June 2006 -- Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile
Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone announced today their intent
to establish the world’s first global, open Linux-based software platform for
mobile devices.
A world-class Linux-based platform aims to provide key benefits for the mobile
industry including lower development costs, increased flexibility, and a richer
mobile ecosystem - all of which contribute to the group’s ultimate objective of
creating compelling, differentiated and enhanced consumer experiences.
To help guide these efforts, the companies are also announcing their intent to
form an independent foundation. The founder companies’ objective is to realize
the development of the platform based on the contributions of all interested
stakeholders through an open and transparent process. Focusing primarily on the
joint development and marketing of an API specification, architecture,
supporting source code-based reference implementation components and tools, the
foundation intends to leverage the benefits of community-based and proprietary
development.
Foundation members also intend to work on the following:
- Implementation of a fair, balanced, transparent contribution and participation process across the current and future membership.
- Establishment of safeguards to minimize fragmentation.
- Collaboration on a mobile Linux developer ecosystem.
- Coordination with existing industry organizations.
- Seeking participation from all interested companies across the value chain, including device manufacturers, operators, chipset manufacturers, independent software vendors, integrators and third-party developers.
Once established, the foundation aims to provide an API specification,
architecture, references to open source code, new source code-based reference
implementation components (to be developed and committed by foundation members)
and specifications for referenced third party software. The foundation also
plans to provide a test suite to assess and demonstrate product conformance to
the platform specification.
While the initial foundation members plan to be primarily responsible for
delivering the development of the first reference implementation of the mobile
operating platform, they will also actively encourage membership participation
of other companies committed to its development. More information about how
others can join the foundation will be made available at a later date.
Perspectives from Industry Leaders
“Motorola is a firm believer in the power of open platforms and the promise of
Linux for mobile,” said Greg Besio, Motorola Corporate Vice President, Mobile
Devices Software. “As such, we are very pleased to be part of this
new, coordinated group effort to accelerate the creation of a universal, mobile
Linux platform which we believe will unleash the tremendous innovation
opportunities for developers, device makers, operators and consumers alike.”
"As one of the leading pioneers with almost two years of experience
shipping
Linux-based mobile phones, we are delighted to participate in this
initiative," said Yoshiharu Tamura, Executive General Manager, Mobile
Terminals Business Unit, NEC Corporation. “We expect the foundation activities
will accelerate further expansion of mobile Linux application developer
participation as well as global market growth of 3G mobile handsets.”
"DoCoMo believes continuously improving performance and reducing handset
costs are vital goals for operators," said Kiyohito Nagata, Vice President
and Managing Director of NTT DoCoMo's Product Department. "DoCoMo strongly
supports this foundation's activities of specifying APIs and enabling powerful
tools for application and middleware developers. This will ensure the creation
of an ecosystem to achieve our goals."
“Linux sits at the core of Panasonic Group’s software strategy, and to date we
have shipped nearly 8 million Linux based handsets in the highly competitive
Japanese market,” said Osamu Waki, Managing Director of Panasonic Mobile
Communications. “We intend to leverage our experience to accelerate the
realization of a truly global Linux-based software platform and ecosystem,
which will lead to faster time to market and increased flexibility, to deliver
appealing products fit for a ubiquitous network society.”
“We are pleased to participate in this project with other industry leaders.
Samsung truly believes that this effort will be a significant step to offering
a cost-effective and unified software platform for mobile phones based on the
Linux operating system. This effort will benefit both the consumers and the
participating companies." said Lee Chulhwan, Senior Vice President of
Mobile R&D team. "We expect that Samsung's technology leadership
and innovative R&D experience will contribute to achieving the goals of the
project through collaboration with other participants."
“Vodafone is excited to be a founder member of this major industry initiative
which aims to reduce fragmentation of Linux based mobile phone software
platforms, and in turn enable us to offer our customers more innovative new
services,” said Jens Schulte-Bockum, Vodafone Global Director of Terminals. “We
expect this initiative to speed time to market for new products and also enable
us to create more personalized products and applications for consumers.”
Source: Motorola press release
