ARM, Sony, ASUSTek, Garmin. These and most of the other 10 companies that have just joined the OHA are big names. The OHA is becoming a must-join, 47-member organisation!

Its difficult to work out what it all means though. Many of these members will be offering code and resource but how many of them are committed to building devices based on OHA code, Android? ARM and Intel for example, will be there because they want their platforms to be used by as many people as possible. Offering code and contact points for developers makes total sense. Vodafone may just be their so they can connect with the OEMs and have a chance to view the ecosystem and possible device in order to make strategic decisions. The entry-ticket for OHA doesn’t appear to be too expensive and the marketing advantages seem to be good so I hope they’re not just in it for the press releases!

[more below]

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You might not have seen the announcement that Ubuntu-mobile had a last minute name change to Ubuntu-ultra mobile PC based on the fact it was targeting mobile computers rather than the lower-spec Intel-based MIDs. Oliver Grawert, one of the lead guys on the Ubuntu-ultra mobile PC project, explains on his blog. It was just in time for the release of version 8.10 (AKA Intrepid Ibex) which was went live today.

Before I give you the links to the 8.10 versions (that I’ll be trying out ASAP) though, let me quickly give you an overview of the two distributions…

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Thanks to everyone that replied to my cry for help on mobile operating systems. I’m trying to take a developers view on the mobile platform market and work out why a developer might choose a particular OS or platform. Coming from an X86 world myself, I find it difficult to understand how Moblin, one of the first X86-only mobile operating systems, might fit into the big, carrier-influenced, ARM-focused, 100million-device-per-year world of converged mobile devices.

Since my article, Nokia announced that Symbian and related projects will be pooled and gradually turned into open-source operation. This article at GigaOm has some good thoughts. Given that they have 65% of the global market it’s obviously a significant move and I’ll be watching closely to see what happens. In the meantime, here’s a list I created of the choices that are in the market. The top 4 basically take the whole of the 100million+ per year smartphone market with LiMo carrying most of the rest. The most shocking thing is the list of Linux options. What on earth are they thinking? Open Source Linux appears to translate to a lack of focus and if I was a commercial development house right now i’d be looking to the top 4. LiMo appears to have some traction with good carrier support and penetration. Android on OHA has a lot of backing and media attention and Moblin has a number of distribution deals although at the moment, these are non-voice netbook distribution deals. It remains to be seen if the X86-focused Intel can stimulate smaller-screen distribution and make the conversion to being a voice platform when their smartphone-focused Morestown cpu comes into play in 2010.

So here’s the list of platforms, systems and methods i’ve put together. i’f i’ve missed one, please let me know!

Top 4 – 95% penetration of mobile device (*1) market.

• Symbian (65%)
• Windows Mobile (13%)
• Blackberry (10%)
• iPhone/ OS-x (7%)

Linux flavours

• LiMo (now includes LiPS)
• Android – OHA
• Moblin – Linux+Gnome+Hildon
• Meamo – Nokia. Linux+Gnome (GtK+, Gstreamer, Matchbox, Hildon)
• Mobilinux – MontaVista Linux
• Acces Linux Platform (LiMo compliant?)
• OpenMoko – Linux+Gnome
• TuxPhone
• Qtopia

Others

• Garnet (Palm, Access)

High-level languages, kits and methods:

• Ajax
• j2me
• Adobe air
• Silverlight
• Flash
• Flex

(*1) % Figures from Canalys

Fresh news from Computex!

IVT has just announced that they have ported the Bluesoleil 5.0 bluetooth stack found on lots of computers to Linux. The program retains its GUI and user friendliness and is supposedly ported specificaly for UMPCs. However with all the naming confusion thats around and the fact that very few UMPCs actually run linux, we assume they mean Netbooks and MIDs. Expect this to provide a good experience with bluetooth on quite a few devices in the future.

Source.

This open gaming handheld reminds me of the WiBrain B1 UMPC. Its got some great specs but the physical implementation looks a mess! It’s the latest incarnation of a design targeted at gamer/developers wanting to run gaming emulators. Based, spiritually on the GP2X, there’s very little focus on Internet connectivity an even less on mobile Internet connectivity (no Bluetooth, 3G) but the interesting thing is that the core hardware could form the basis of an interesting mobile Internet platform. Its being called ‘Pandora.’ [Wiki] Here’s an early prototype rendering.

The hardware is designed around a Cortex A8 CPU which is a RISC design and, according to what I read, will enable raw processing power equivalent to the new mobility focused X86 CPU’s like Intel’s Silverthorn CPU.

As the first product in TI’s OMAPâ„¢ 3 family of applications processors with the ARM Cortex-A8 superscalar microprocessor core, the OMAP3430 delivers up to 3X gain in performance over ARM11-based processors. The new processor leverages industry-leading technologies to provide mobile phone battery life together with the performance needed for laptop-comparable productivity software and an audio-video experience equivalent to that of consumer electronics devices. [TI PDF]

With an 800×480 screen, keyboard, Wifi and expansion ports it will be interesting to see what sort of performance it reaches running Firefox and what sort of battery life it returns.

I’m doing a lot of reading on Cortex at the moment so if anyone has any pointers to other Cortex-based projects or reading material, please let me know and i’ll add them to my watchlist.

Via Engadget and a tip from TSO, thanks!