14 DAY TRIAL // Motorola Mobility, one of the few brands that fully embraces the Android franchise, is working on a new web-based mobile operating system intended to replace Google's mobile platform.
Apparently, Motorola has started developing its own platform since Oracle's patent lawsuit against Google's Android was filed, back in 2010.
The main reason behind Oracle's move seems to be the fact that Google took Sun’s Java and modified it to the point where it thought it wouldn’t have to pay Sun to license Java within Android.
Unfortunately, Oracle is claiming that Google’s Java clone infringes upon Sun intellectual property, which Oracle now owns, thus it demands monetary infringement damages and seeks to “impound and destroy” any code that is found to infringe its copyrights.
It looks like Motorola thinks that Oracle has a high chance to win the legal fight with Google, which will basically put an end to the Android platform. Motorola's allegedly web-based OS is meant to give the company more control over its future.
Commenting on the matter, Jonathan Goldberg, an analyst with Deutsche Bank in San Francisco, said that he too had heard Motorola was at work on its own operating system, “I know they're working on it. I think the company recognizes that they need to differentiate and they need options, just in case. Nobody wants to rely on a single supplier.”
Furthermore, for the last several months the company has been hiring high ranking Apple and Adobe developers, including Gilles Drieu, Apple's rich media and applications group, who is now Motorola's VP of software engineering.
While the company refused to comment on the matter, reassuring its support for Google's Android mobile platform, it the existence of the project either.
A new Motorola web-based operating system makes perfect sense, especially if we think about other major handset manufacturers who have already developed their own mobile platforms: Samsung's bada, HTC's Brew, RIM's Blackberry, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 and HP's webOS.
LG and Sony Ericsson seem to be the only big players that haven't announced any such, but we should not be surprised to see them turn to other platforms in case Google loses the patents war.