Panasonic and NEC announce 9 new Linux phones

By on Aug 11, 2009 at 7:52 AM
Software August 11, 2009

In a world where BlackBerry, Android, iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile and webOS dominate the mobile OS space, it’s been tough for LiMo to get a little love. Sure Android and webOS are Linux-based, but it’s just not the same. In an interesting move, Panasonic and NEC have chosen to go with LiMo — unveiling nine new devices that will feature the open-source operating system. Japanese mobile carrier KDDI and touchscreen company Immersion Corp are teaming up for the project but LiMo is hoping to the move grabs the attention of larger manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung and LG. Good luck with that. With less costs involved in running open source systems it could be more enticing for manufacturers to look to LiMo in the future. The mobile OS space is already pretty cluttered however, so don’t expect LiMo to start popping up on anything relevant from amongst the big boys any time soon.

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  • Joe

    Hideous.

  • LadySiren

    Um, Samsung and LG are already part of LiMo…just sayin’.

  • zzzzzz

    FAIL – ugly UI

    get some decent interface designers and UI design guidelines like Apple/Android has

    ugly Linux is OK on the desktop, but phones are a status symbol and if your UI is ugly in the mobile world, you won’t sell much

    Retry[Y/n]?

  • Invid

    I hope that Netfront isn’t the default browser or this OS is dead in the water.Slowest browser I’ve ever used on any platform.

  • http://blackberrybaby! warhed

    Seem so crowded already! To eaches own…

  • Maverick

    what the hell is handmail?

  • http://www.innopath.com Jason Lackey

    The Japanese OEMs suffer from what some industry pundits have terms the Galapagos Syndrome – where you have an isolated ecosystem where evolution proceeds but in a tangental direction leaving the inhabitants unable to survive outside their sheltered enclave. Some of the advanced Japanese featurephones have been stunning – incredible power and featuresets in thin, sexy formfactor packaging. However, the pace of innovation and progress is catching up with this model and even where much of the platform is provided, such as is the case with LiMo, it is becoming increasingly difficult to reinvent all of the wheels necessary to build a compelling device in time for the next model cycle.

    This way of building phones is on the way out, in the next few years the Japanese handset market will be hard to recognize from today’s perspective. There will still be some of the hyper featurephones but they will increasingly be replaced by Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian, although these devices will likely have things like oneseg digital tv tuners and the like.

    LiMo seemed a great idea, until Android. Like in the Highlander, in the end there can be only one.

  • Beeve

    @Maverick

    I believe it involves some lotion (or anything similar) and some tissue (or a sock).

    Followed by a wet-nap.

  • tRICKster

    Handmail = spank-o-rama

  • ToniCipriani

    Isn’t that screenshot Access Linux Platform??

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