Originally published December 18 2005
Linux runs on cell phones and supercomputers
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Over three quarters of the world's top supercomputers now run with Linux. Consumers have a good chance of encountering the operating system in cell phones, as one quarter of all smartphones use Linux.
But the really exciting action, where billions of consumers will first experience Linux, is in wireless handheld devices.
Industry analysts estimate that mobile phones are a $300 billion annual market.
However, most major industry players today build and ship handheld devices comprised almost exclusively of proprietary software.
For the 1.5 billion consumers globally who have mobile phones, whether the software embedded in the plastic, metal, and silicon is open or closed doesn't matter (except when it breaks!).
Of the 680 million handsets sold last year, only 20 million were so-called "smartphones" -- devices that act like "little PCs," with Web browsing and multimedia, as well as software to manage calendars, contacts, and e-mail.
Just a year ago, fewer than one in 20 smartphones ran Linux.
But by June of this year, the open-source operating system had grabbed more than a quarter of the smartphone business, far ahead of Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Mobile, PalmOS (PALM), or BlackBerry RIM (RIMM), according to market-research firm Gartner.
For the global giants competing in this mobile market, the operating system matters a lot, too.
Household brands -- from Microsoft (MSFT), Samsung, and Nokia (NOK) to Motorola (MOT), LG Electronics, Palm, and Research in Motion -- are placing major bets on mobile devices (in some instances literally wagering the company).
To accelerate the momentum behind Linux in mobile, the consortium that I lead, Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), recently launched a new initiative to bring vendors together to work on addressing the mobile industry's shared challenges.
New industry startups such as Funambol, developers of open-source software that keeps mobile devices always synchronized, are directly challenging proprietary incumbents like Good, Microsoft, RIM, and Visto.
PalmSource, makers of the PalmOS, recently embraced Linux as their future operating-system platform.
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