14 DAY TRIAL // LiMo Foundation, a multinational consortium of leading mobile companies, announced the release of LiMo Platform, the first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices, together with the immediate public availability of the API (application programming interface) specifications. The platform will be available starting March 2008, after being showcased at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, between 11 and 14 February.
Built around an open operating system, with a safe run-time environment to support downloaded applications, the LiMo Platform works as a plug-in based, modular hardware-independent assembly. LiMo Foundation selected Linux as the core technology for the LiMo platform due to its acceptability by the entire mobile industry, its record of success in mobile phones and embedded systems, its elaborated functionality and scalability and its ability to easily "cross-platformize" with various other product categories.
"The LiMo Platform is being readied by mobile leaders working in unison to deliver an open handset platform for use by the whole industry," said Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation. "The first release of the LiMo Platform combines technologies already extensively market proven within an array of leading handsets. This will enable initial LiMo handsets to register in the marketplace far more rapidly than handsets based on unproven technology. In addition, we are now making the platform APIs freely available to the public in order to begin the widespread engagement of developer talent and innovation that will shape the new mobile consumer experiences of tomorrow."
The initial Founder members of LiMo - Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung Electronics, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Vodafone - worked together on Release 1 (R1), and almost all of the enabling technology featured in that release has been commercially deployed and proven within devices appreciated by users today.
"We are very proud of the transparent, balanced and harmonious contribution process that led to the on-schedule roll-out of R1 of the LiMo platform and our API specifications. This unique process - with its shared leadership and decision-making - has delivered the benefits of both community-based and proprietary development," said Kiyohito Nagata of NTT DoCoMo, chairperson of LiMo Foundation. "The evolution of the platform is an ongoing process. We are delighted with the wide range companies contributing to that process as we now work on Release 2."
"With LiMo announcing the first release of the platform that is common across many handset vendors and models, the stage is set for mobile innovation on Linux," said Guido Arnone, Director of Terminals Technology, Vodafone, and vice chairperson of LiMo Foundation. "The LiMo Platform enables operators and handset makers to assign greater investment to technologies that improve the consumer experience and technology vendors and ISVs to target their products for a software platform that is being broadly adopted by the whole industry."
Since LiMo's API specifications are available from LiMo's website, third-party developers will be able to use them in creating new applications that can provide advanced consumer experiences for a huge base of world-wide deployed mobile devices.
Launched at the beginning of 2007, the LiMo Foundation is open to all service providers and vendors in the mobile industry, including operators, device manufacturers, chipset manufacturers, independent software vendors, integrators or third-party developers.