Cell Phones: Don’t Count Linux Out

“In February, 2003, electronics giant Motorola Inc. (MOT ) stunned the mobile-phone business with a bold change of course. During the industry’s annual shindig in Cannes, the Schaumberg (Ill.) company announced the world’s first handset built around the Linux operating system and unveiled plans to use the populist software in consumer phones from then on. Pundits saw this as a slap at Symbian Ltd., the London software consortium Motorola co-founded five years earlier with Nokia Corp. (NOK ) and Ericsson to develop software for feature-rich smart phones. It was also a major lift for Linux, the grassroots operating system that until then was used mainly on servers.

Linux is picking up steam, especially in Asia. Korean giant Samsung Group is selling a Linux-based phone called the SCH-i519 in China and has other models on the way. Chinese telecom equipment maker Datang said in July that it will use Linux to power upcoming phones for third-generation (3G) networks. And Sunnyvale (Calif.)-based MontaVista Software Inc., which supplies the version of Linux used in most phones, says it has won 10 contracts for handsets using Linux, including several from European makers. “Every single mobile-phone maker is looking at Linux,” says Stéphane Deruelle, MontaVista’s director for Southern Europe”.

I’ll have to keep my eye on this one, catch the rest of the article.