SUNNYVALE, Calif.-The Linux operating system has raised its stakes in the wireless world in a pact with MontaVista Software, which has agreed to embed the OS into a variety of handsets.
The move squares Linux off against both the Palm and Symbian operating systems.
Phone maker NEC Corp. is the first to indicate interest in the OS, although it has not yet designed a handset based on Linux.
“Devices are going from a very traditional, low-cost, on-and-off fixed function to very complex network-connected digital devices and these new devices have a lot of additional requirements, including high-performance hardware,” said Scott Hedrick, senior product marketing manager for consumer electronics at MontaVista.
Some industry watchers see Linux as a potential rival to Microsoft’s Windows. But Linux will have to contend with the brand name and economy of scale that Microsoft enjoys. Symbian is backed by wireless heavyweight Nokia Corp., and that could give it an edge over Linux.
But some industry experts say Linux is a better product because it has no single owner and can be tweaked by any programmer to suit distinctive needs. Neither Microsoft nor Symbian has this virtue, according to analysts.
Whether Symbian will survive depends not on its quality but on its backing, although some analysts think that its backers may switch to other products in the long run.
