Mobile Linux ‘ or rather, a top-to-bottom platform with the open source OS at its base ‘ has become the number one weapon in the fight to take the leading role in defining the mobile internet experience, and the devices that will support it. Whether or not the operating system and its ecosystem are yet mature enough to bear such a burden of responsibility ‘ and the experiences of Google Android tell us the answer is almost certainly ‘no’ ‘ it is at the heart of a power struggle that will be highly significant to the future fortunes of several key players, most notably the search/online advertising giants, Nokia and Intel. Although all parties set out their stalls at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, in fact the mega-event made clear that this is a battle that has only just begun, and where no party has demonstrated sufficient credibility yet to claim any rights take the helm in the mobile internet.
Google assembled supporters for its Android platform while the supposedly complementary LiMo Foundation ‘ which, in fact, is the best available weapon for those looking to limit Google’s impact ‘ took the high ground in having real, usable tools. Companies that positioned against one another in conference sessions one day were forming alliances the next ‘ most notably Google and Nokia ‘ while Yahoo and AOL were both seeking to carve out their own role alongside these behemoths.
Just to confuse matters further, the large operators were getting more aggressive about their own contribution to the mobile internet chain, with Vodafone setting up its own Internet Services division to try to steal some momentum back from the suppliers. But perhaps the clearest lesson, and one that Google needs to learn very well, is that in the real mobile world, compelling devices trump grand open access strategies and clever software concepts every time, as proven by the under-specified but much loved iPhone.
So the Android prototypes were largely dismissed as systems for a future and uncertain world, and were probably most interesting for the insights they gave into the various chipmakers’ Linux strategies ‘ while the passion was reserved for the real handsets, and the multimedia/internet machines emerging from Samsung, Nokia and the others.
And then there was Microsoft. With its bid for Yahoo rejected, though of course not failed, the company’s mobile internet strategy remains somewhat unclear, but the Windows giant knows it must act decisively if it is not to lose its way in a world that is increasingly alien ‘ driven by Linux not Windows, and by success in small consumer devices, something that has eluded Microsoft outside its enterprise heartland.
We have argued before that there is a logic to Microsoft making common cause with the old enemy in mobile, Nokia, in order to head off Google, but at MWC the other Symbian-oriented phonemaker, Sony Ericsson, suddenly seemed a more likely candidate to help Microsoft out of its handset rut, announcing its first ever Windows device, partly as a response to the increasingly high profile HTC, whose effort to escape from its Taiwanese ODM box and create its own brand is based around Windows smartphones like the popular Touch. And if neither Scandinavian proves amenable, Microsoft is still building its armory in mobile internet devices, acquiring Danger, the well regarded designer of the cult phone, the Hiptop/Sidekick.
Sony Ericsson will use the Windows Mobile OS in its new Xperia X1 handset, an arc slider with a three-inch display and Qwerty keypad, due in the second half of the year. Like Nokia, it is looking beyond Symbian ‘ in which it is an investor, and where it co-owns the UIQ user interface with Motorola. While Symbian is powerful in smartphones, especially in Europe, multiple OS strategies are the only way to get into a wide range of markets and achieve the goal of delivering a range of user experiences, each geared to a different set of users.
Sony Ericsson is an important ally, but the appeal of Danger for Microsoft is less obvious. It is unlikely that the software giant bought the device maker for its cult, but niche, handsets, or its own operating system, but on the other hand, Danger’s ‘software-as-a-service’ expertise, could prove valuable to improve the mobile web experience that Windows Mobile can deliver. Danger has recognized strengths in its user interface, social networking, and integration of services through a carrier’s network. For lossmaking Danger, the acquisition saves it from attempting an IPO, which it was planning to do this year to raise about $100 million. Danger lost about $28 million in its last fiscal year and $21 million the previous year though its 2007 revenue reached $56 million, up from $49 million the prior year.
Danger Sidekicks at T-Mobile USA are made by Sharp and Motorola, while Danger also drives Hiptop devices sold in Europe and Australia, and by SunCom Wireless Holdings in the US, which is in the process of being acquired by T-Mobile USA. Windows Mobile is steadily growing its share of that market from about 9% last year to a projected 13% this year, according to data from Nomura.
Despite Microsoft’s activities, Nokia remains the company in the vanguard of shaping the mobile web, with Google biting at its heels. Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in his MWC keynote that his company will “reshape the internet’, particularly by enabling a ‘context aware internet’ that combines multimedia features, internet and Assisted- GPS, all geared around Maps.
Meanwhile, Yahoo ‘ fresh from rejecting Microsoft’s unsolicited $44.6 billion bid, claiming the offer “substantially undervalues” its worth ‘ showed again what it has been demonstrating recently, that operator alliances may further its mobile cause better than trying to create a whole new approach like Google. Its latest coup is to become T-Mobile’s exclusive mobile search provider in the operator’s northern and central European markets. T-Mobile will introduce Yahoo oneSearch at the end of March, with the two companies planning to develop a differentiated oneSearch experience optimized specifically for T-Mobile subscribers for future release. They also plan to collaborate on introducing T-Mobile incarnations of Yahoo services like Flickr, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Weather and Yahoo Finance. The offering will focus heavily on ‘federated search’, including contextual responses culled from multiple sources, not just the web.
Many of the baseband chipmakers were signing up for Android, though one interesting aspect is that, in doing so, they are committing to an open source model and have to make full sourcecode for their low level drivers and libraries for Android available, even to rivals. Qualcomm, Broadcom and Texas Instruments all showed Android prototypes, and none of these is familiar with how the open source model really works, or with the implications of showing publicly the detailed functionality of the chips. Sourcecode will be available to competitors and to the emerging Chinese semiconductor manufacturers, causes that were only recently fought in Wi-Fi only, perhaps, to be lost in cellular Linux.
While chipmakers mull these dilemmas, they were at least lending initial support to Android:
Texas Instruments demonstrated an Android-based prototype handset and developer kit using its OMAP3430 and OMAP850 application processors, aiming to prove its multimedia credentials and show Android with a rich user interface and a host of internet apps.
Qualcomm’s similar prototype used its MSM7201A single-chip solution, which was originally developed to target the Windows Mobile.
Although Broadcom is also a member of the Open Handset Alliance, the group that supports Android, its demonstrations at MWC were using generic Linux and stressed multi-OS support. The company showed its BCM2153 dual-core HSDPA processor, which can support Symbian, Windows Mobile or Linux on a single chip.
STMicroelectronics showed off its Nomadik multimedia application processor, the STn8815, ported to various operating systems, including Symbian, Nucleus, WinCE, Linux 2.4 and Android.
As well as Android, the LiMo Foundation was showing off the first handsets based on its own emerging mobile Linux platform. Seven companies had prototypes, and the body also announced new members and a software development kit (SDK) strategy. Now a year old, and claiming a clear market lead in terms of real technology over Android, LiMo may well also be a valuable vehicle for one or more members’ ambitions, whether Motorola, looking to use Linux to revive its handset fortunes, or Nokia, which is now connected to LiMo via its Trolltech acquisition and which may want to make common cause with at least one Linux effort, rather than plough its own furrow entirely.
There were no Nokia phones for LiMo yet, though it did claim some commercial models as well as prototypes. These included the Motorola Moto U9, Z6w, Motorokr Z6 and RAZR2 V8; the NEC FOMA N905i and N705i; Panasonic’s FOMA P905iTV and N7051; and Samsung’s SGH-i800. There were also reference and prototype handsets from LG, Aplix and Purple Labs.
LiMo Foundation also announced the recruitment of Orange, Access, AMD, FueTrek, Open-Plug, Renesas, Samsung SDS, SoftBank and STMicro, bringing the consortium’s membership to 32. “We are firmly committed to the growth of Linux – it is the most permissive platform,” said Orange’s EVP of strategic marketing, Georges Penalver. “Linux is not an academic exercise for us. We want to deliver for our customers as soon as possible. We want devices in 2008, and a wide range of products in 2009.”
The first release of the LiMo Platform will arrive in March. Co-founders Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic, Samsung Electronics and Vodafone all collaborated on Release 1, creating a modular open platform enabled almost entirely by technology already in commercial deployment on handsets. An SDK strategy spanning the Native, Java and WebKit SDKs will roll out in the second half of 2008, supporting LiMo-based handsets scheduled to come to market in the fourth quarter. The SDK suite is presently being readied by LiMo board members Access, Aplix, Azingo, Motorola and Wind River.
Google also released an updated version of the software development kit for Android,
m5-rc14, which updates the platform’s APIs and developer tools. Among the improvements are a new user interface and the ability to create layout animations for applications. In addition, the SDK upgrade offers geocoding, which enables developers to translate an address into a coordinate and vice versa, and to search for businesses. The upgrade also has support for more audio file formats and has an updated Eclipse plug-in.
Freescale is the latest baseband processor player to lay out a Linux strategy, an area where Broadcom, in particular, has been quick to make its weight felt, recognizing that this will be the device platform of the future. At MWC, Freescale announced that it had started supporting Linux on its cellular products and that its MXC architecture could use any Linux Application Framework, whether open or an OEM’s proprietary implementation.