Business 2.0: Open Source Hits The Open Road

“Linus Torvalds should be proud. Several wireless industry
manufacturers recently announced they would power their latest
phones and personal digital assistants using mobile variants of the
operating system first developed by Torvalds. Both Motorola and NEC
have pledged allegiance to Linux, alongside a slew of smaller, less
recognizable companies, making the open-source movement a viable
alternative to proprietary operating systems offered by Palm,
Microsoft, and others.

“So far, Motorola has emerged as the industry’s biggest Linux
advocate. Last week the Libertyville, Ill., company unveiled the
A760, which runs Linux and a mobile version of the popular Java
programming language. A cross between a wireless phone and a PDA,
the A760 offers a built-in digital camera, an MP3 player, Internet
access, and Bluetooth wireless technology. Available later this
year, it’s Motorola’s first attempt to combine Linux and Java. By
pairing the two, Motorola is hoping to leverage the fast-moving
(and often overlapping) open-source and Java programming
communities to rapidly develop games and business applications that
will help differentiate the A760 from the competition…”

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