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Mobile makes open source mainstream
10-12-2008
by Ralph Averbuch
Perhaps unsurprisingly there have been plenty of people ready to write off Google's mobile platform Android before it's even had a decent handset to go with it. Despite that some 28,000 of the G1 handsets have been pre-ordered exclusively from T-Mobile in the UK (not possible in Ireland at the moment). Yet for a first attempt, the G1 does showcase a very comprehensive mobile OS that puts to shame the years of effort ploughed into the likes of Palm and Windows Mobile. For a new-to-market piece of software it's very polished. And perhaps that's why a whole bunch more big names have decided to work with, rather than compete against Google on the mobile platform. The Google-backed group, the Open Handset Alliance, has announced 14 new companies that have come on board. There are a bunch of interesting companies amongst the new members but the stand-outs are Vodafone, Sony Ericsson and ARM. That's because the latter is pretty much the designer of a huge proportion of the processors to be found in today's mobiles. So here's the question this all begs. Open source has resulted in some rather good PC operating systems, yet they have perhaps one percent of the entire PC/laptop market. Can Google's backing of open source give Android and other open source mobile platforms the kind of leg-up that has yet to happen with Linux on PC? One thing's for sure, Microsoft is unlikely to join this party any time soon...
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