Companies Strive to Increase Adoption of Linux® for Mobile;
Speed Innovation for Wireless
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.”
***
Sharen Santoski
Motorola, Inc.
+1-781-372-4264
Sharen.Santoski@motorola.com
http://www.motorola.com
Akiko Shikimori
NEC Corporation
+81-3-3798-6511
a-shikimori@ay.jp.nec.com
http://www.nec.com
Masanori Goto
NTT DoCoMo, Inc.
+81-3-5156-1366
gotoum@nttdocomo.co.jp
http://www.nttdocomo.com
Junji Kanegawa
Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd.
+81-45-939-6455
kanegawa.junji@jp.panasonic.com
http://panasonic.co.jp/pmc/en
Sophia Kim
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
+82-2-751-2215
Sophia.Kim@samsung.com
http://www.samsung.com
Vodafone Group Media Relations
Vodafone Group Services Limited
+44-1635-664444
Media.Relations@vodafone.com
http://www.vodafone.com
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