Huawei, TrollTech joins LiMo Foundation - Mobile Linux Group againstAndroid

Huawei, TrollTech joins LiMo Foundation - Mobile Linux Group against Android. LiMo Foundation is a group formed by Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics and Vodafone with an idea to deliver an open and globally consistent software platform based upon mobile Linux. LiMo's new members are including Trolltech, Acrodea, ETRI, Huawei, and Purple Labs. The group, including founders NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, and Motorola, now consists of 25 members.

Among five new additions to the LiMo Foundation are Chinese manufacturer Huawei and Trolltech, the Linux developers who last year launched the open-source Green Phone, bringing the total to 23 companies. In addition South Korea's ETRI, a national R+D lab have joined the efforts. Although these new companies are relatively small, the LiMo Foundation was founded by major companies and carriers including NTT DoCoMo, which is also a part of Google's Open Handset Alliance Linux efforts. Despite DoCoMo's key membership in both, it is not clear whether LiMo's efforts will work in concert with or be positioned against the OHA.

While Android and its Open Handset Alliance supporters are creating a competitive offering to LiMo's software, LiMo's head says its effort has advantages.

"An important difference is that the code within the LiMo platform is market-proven technology that has been brought to the platform by our founder members in the form of Motorola, Samsung, NEC, and Panasonic," said Morgan Gillis, executive director of LiMo. "We simply reintegrated it to form the first release of the LiMo platform." That contrasts with Android, a new software platform containing "unproven code" that Google has only just produced, he said. It typically takes two to three years before handset software is stabilized and ready for volume production, he said.

LiMo expects to unveil the first release of its open Linux-based operating system as well as APIs for developers during the first quarter. It also expects that the first handsets based on the software will hit the market during the quarter.