Mobile Operating Systems the New Generation

8/8/2019 Mobile Operating Systems the New Generation

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Executive Summary

Much has changed from the world of open operating

systems of 2003. The mobile software market hasgrown into a landscape of 100s of vendors where

understanding the roles, functionality, lines of

partnership and competition across software products

is a complex endeavour, even for a seasoned industry

observer. This paper aims to help change that.

The paper firstly presents the key software layers for

mobile phones today and explains the importance of

application execution environments and UI frameworks.

Section A then examines common misperceptions in

the software market of 2006; the flexible OS genre as

the successor to the open OSs, the myth and reality

behind Linux for mobile phones, and the false start but

continued efforts around J2ME. Chapter B compares

several software platforms for product functionality,

licensees and speed of market penetration.

A reference section follows, consisting of 2-page

reviews of 16 key software products, covering historical

product background, positioning, technology, strategy,

and including the authors critical viewpoint.

The final chapter analyses the five key trends that will

overshadow the mobile software market in 2006-2009.

Firstly, software flexibility vs openness will be the

critical theme for successful operating systems.

Secondly, as the sale value line moves towards

middleware and upper software layers, so the core

operating system technology will commoditise. Thirdly,

technology verticalisation is gradually taking place, with

vendors merging or partnering to offer out-of-the-box

pre-integrated software stacks. In symmetry, thedemand for software platforms is consolidating, with not

only manufacturers, but also enterprises and mobile

operators making a choice of platform.

We believe that 2006 marks a turning point in the

history of Linux as a mobile phone platform, not only

due to Motorolas recent commitment, but also the

wealth of products and support services from a growing

commercial community. Longer term, we believe Linux-

based platforms will prevail over many of todays

credible contestants, as will Microsofts Windows

Mobile.

Contents

Chapter A: Mobile Software Today: Open OSs, Linux

and other Misperceptions

A.1. The New Generation of Operating Systems

A.2. Linux: Myth and Reality

A.3. Java: A False Start, But Efforts Continue

A.4. Nokia against Symbian

A.5. Conclusions and Market Trends

Chapter B: Making Sense of Operating Systems, UI

Frameworks and Application Environments

Chapter C: Product reviews

In-Depth reviews of A la Mobile, Access Linux

Platform, Adobe Flash Lite, GTK+, MiniGUI, Mizi

Prizm, Montavista Mobilinux, Nokia S60, Obigo,

Openwave Midas, Qualcomm Brew, SavaJe,

Symbian OS, Trolltech Qtopia, UIQ And Windows

Mobile.

Chapter D: Trends in the Mobile Software Market

Open OSes are out; Flexible OSs are in

Commoditisation of the core OS technology

Verticalisation of technology supply

Consolidation of platform demand

2006: The turning point for Linux

Methodology

To research the market and products analysed in this

paper, the author conducted interviews with A la Mobile,

Adobe, Microsoft, Mizi Research, MontaVista, Obigo,

Openwave, PalmSource, Qualcomm QIS, SavaJe,

Symbian, Trolltech and UIQ. The views and information

presented in this paper as well as the product reviews

are independent and in no way biased towards the

sponsor of this paper.

Acknowledgements

The author would like express his gratitude to a number

of individuals who assisted with information, and

feedback on this paper, during the project research:

Hampus Jakobsson, Guy Agin, Philippe Silberzahn,

Franck Lefevre, Matt Lewis, David Wood, Don Liberty,

Richard Kinder, Jeff Waugh, Bill Weinberg, Madeline

Duva, Juha Christensen, Mark Melling, Andy Tiller,Peter Whale and other individuals who wish to remain

anonymous


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About VisionMobile

VisionMobile is a boutique firm delivering strategy

consulting, industry research and technology training in

the wireless sector. VisionMobile brings together

passionate people with industry and technology know-

how and innovative thinking.

About the author

Dr. Andreas Constantinou, Director of VisionMobile, is

an analyst and consultant with eight years experience

in research, development and strategy in telecoms. His

areas of focus are mobile handsets, mobile software,

device management, operator strategy, wireless market

trends and disruptive technologies. Andreas has

worked on numerous product and marketing strategy

projects for companies including Orange, FranceTelecom R&D, T-Mobile, Idem, and Red Bend, in

addition to authoring research reports and white papers

for analyst firms Informa and ARCchart. He is also the

Technology Editor and a monthly columnist for

telecoms magazines InfoCom and Mobile Telephony

and is regularly invited at international telecoms

conferences as a speaker and chairman. Andreas

holds a Ph.D. in Image & Video Compression from the

University of Bristol, UK.

web: www.visionmobile.com

email: [email protected]

address: 84 Kirkland Avenue, Clayhall,

Ilford Essex IG5 0TN, UK

phone: +44 (207) 099 3934

Disclaimers

VisionMobile believes the statements contained in this

publication to be based upon information that we

consider reliable, but we do not represent that it is

accurate or complete, and it should not be relied upon

as such. Opinions expressed are current opinions as of

the date appearing on this publication only and the

information, including the opinions contained herein,

are subject to change without notice.

Use of this publication by any third party for whatever

purpose should not, and does not, absolve such third

party from using due diligence in verifying the

publications contents. VisionMobile disclaims all

implied warranties, including, without limitation,

warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular

purpose. VisionMobile, its affiliates and representatives,

shall have no liability for any direct, incidental, special,

or consequential damages or lost profits, if any,

suffered by any third party as a result of decisions

made, or not made, or actions taken, or not taken,

based on this publication.

Cover image: Six Athletes Holding Batons at the

Starting Line of a Relay Race / Digital Vision / Getty

Images


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Mobile Software Today:

Open OSs, Linux and other Misperceptions

A.1 | The New Generation of Operating Systems

A conceptual model for software

Mobile phone software has come a long way inthe last few years. The industry of mobile

software circa 2002-3 comprised of the so-called

open operating systems for high-end handsets,

and the little known world of software vendors

for mainstream handsets that worked within

closed manufacturer circles.

The software landscape in 2006 is greatly more

complex. The boundary between software for

high-end and mainstream handsets has almost

disappeared. Software products from tens of

major vendors can be mixed and matched in

countless permutations. Understanding the roles,

functionality, lines of partnership and competition

across software products is a complex

endeavour, even for a seasoned industry

observer.

To help the reader navigate along the complex

labyrinth of vendors and products, we present a

conceptual model for the mobile phone software

that makes up a typical mid-range or high-end

handset. Phone software can be visualised as a

software stack of functional layers, from bottom

to top:

The kernel, the core of the software which

includes hardware drivers, memory,

filesystem and process management.

The middleware layer, the set of peripheral

software libraries which enable handset

applications, but are not visible to the user.

Examples are messaging and

communications engines, WAP/web page

renderers, multimedia codecs, security

subsystem and device management.

The application execution environment

(AEE), an application manager and set

application programming interfaces (APIs)

which allow external developers or

manufacturers to develop handset

applications.

The user interface (UI) framework, a set

of graphics components (screens, buttons,

lists, etc) and an interaction framework that

gives handset applications their look & feel.

The application suite, the set of core

handset applications such as the idle-

screen, dialler, application launcher or menu

screen, contacts, calendar, inbox, browsershell and settings screens that form the

interfacethat the phone user experiences

most of the time.

Reusing a term from the Linux world, a

distribution is the complete, integrated stack of

software components, from top to bottom that

powers a mobile handset. Within this

conceptualisation of software, we take the term

operating system to mean a pre-integrated

software stack that includes the kernel and

drivers. The depth of a software stack

A


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VisionMobile research 2

represents a trade-off between completeness

and flexibility, between time-to-market and room

to add visible value, as notes OSDLs Bill

Weinberg.

An often-used term in describing software stacks

is the value line, which we define as the point in

the software stack below which vendors are

finding it difficult to demand per-unit royalties

from product sales. As the commoditisation of

the kernel and core OS increases, so the value

line moves upwards towards the middleware and

upper layers of the software stack.

The diagram on this page visualises the

simplified handset software stack, and gives

examples of vendors and products that deliver

functionality corresponding to each layer; the

examples shown contain a degree of

oversimplification as a product never neatly fits

into any single category.

From horizontal to vertical

The conceptual model of stacked horizontal

layers of functionality becomes in reality much

more complex. Each product typically has to use

and integrate functionality from several different

layers and components; for example a Java AEE

product has to integrate all the way from the

kernel to the UI framework.

To tame this complexity and deliver plug-and-

play components to handset manufacturers,

software vendors are expanding to deliver

functionality integrated across the stack.

Examples are Esmertecs acquisition of Coretek

(an applications developer), Taos evolution of

its Intent platform into an application

environment, Aplixs product evolution to a

complete software stack and Flash Lites

ongoing evolution to a full UI framework. This

verticalisation trend marks a full circle back tothe status quo of the fully integrated software

stacks of the 1990s.

| Open OS: A defunct term

It is worth reflecting on how open operating

systems have evolved. In 2003, only three short

years ago, open OSs were a hot topic in industry

circles. Back then, open OSs were seen as the

answer to the increasing phone featuritis and

considered a one-way street for most handset

manufacturers. The stakes were high for who

was going to win the war of the OSs: Nokia (who

was behind Symbian), Microsoft or Palm OS?

The stakes seemed to reflect the common

learnings from the war of desktop operating

systems, where only a single winner survives.

Fast forward three years. The market, far from

consolidating around one or two of major

Kernel and Hardware Driverse.g. Nucleus, MontaVista MobiLinux, Wind River,Qualcomm AMSS/REX, Symbian OS, ENEA OSE

Hardware platform

e.g. TI, Marvel (Intel), Infineon, Qualcomm, Freescale,Philips, Skyworks

third partyapplications

Middlewaree.g. Open Plug, SKY MobileMedia, Real, Gstreamer,mFormation

Application Execution Environmente.g. Java, Adobe Flash Lite, Openwave MIDAS, TrolltechQtopia, Qualcomm BREW, .NET Compact Framework

User Interface Frameworke.g. GTK+, miniGUI, Trolltech Qtopia, TAT, DigitalAirways, MSX

Software

Hardware

Simplified software stack showing key building blocks

of a mobile phone

Application Suitee.g. Obigo, Jataayu, Access

Source: VisionMobile


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operating systems, has seen the number of OS,

user interfaces and application execution

environments actually increase and diversify.

The mobile operating system story is no longer

about a war between Microsoft and Nokia.

Michael Mace, ex Chief Competitive Officer for

Palm, puts together a compelling justification for

the lack of a single winner in the OS war.

According to Mace, the desktop OS strategy

follows a virtuous circle: a richer platform leads

to more applications, which leads to more

hardware sales and therefore more platform

sales. The process feeds off itself, and pretty

soon one OS has 90% of the market and the

other is called Macintosh, Mace says. However

this virtuous circle does not apply to mobile

handsets. Whereas in the desktop world the OS

is what gives power to commoditised hardware,

in the mobile world the purchase decision is

driven by retail price, cosmetics and features,

not software platforms.

As we argue next, the term open OS has

become defunct, a little known, but anincreasingly important fact to understanding the

mobile software landscape of today.

Open OSes was a term coined to contrast the

openness of operating systems for mobile

phones such as Symbian OS and Windows

Mobile, to the closed nature of the manufacturer

home-grown operating systems, such as Nokias

NOS and EMPs OPA. The openness stems

from the ability for operators to customise thelook & feel of the handset and for software

developers to develop and deploy applications

on the handset.

It is a widely known fact today that all operating

systems, whether open or closed are routinely

customised to operator requirements. In addition,

the openness of the platform to third party

developers has been shown to be of secondary

importance. Plenty of open application

execution environments exist today, such as

Java, Flash Lite, S60 and Qtopia. What is of

paramount importance to the community of

developers today is the AEEs degree of

consistency across device models,

manufacturers, operators and regions, rather

than their degree of openness (as application

execution environments are open by design).

| The flexible OS

We believe that a new term for operating

systems and needs to be coined, for which we

propose the term flexible operating system. The

flexibility stems from three very important

qualities that a competitive and complete OS

must possess today:

Rapid UI prototyping tools

Operators have gotten their way with

customising the handset iconography, the menu

order, preloaded content and settings. For

operator-customised devices to truly differentiate,

a software stack needs to offer tools that

facilitate rapid, but in-depth customisation of the

UI including the dialler and home-screen

application, as well as the key applications such

as browser and messaging that form part of the

user journey. A flexible OS or software stack will

offer designers (and their customers) greater,

cost-effective freedom at implementing radically

different user experiences.

A consistent application execution

environment

Not only are application execution environments

diverse (examples include S60, UIQ, Qtopia,

Java, BREW, Flash Lite and Openwave MIDAS)

but they are also fragmented, with Java

environments showing incompatibilities across

device models, manufacturers, operator variants

and regional variants. A flexible OS or software

stack will stretch across platforms, devices and

manufacturers but not alter its characteristics.

Equally importantly, AEEs are competing not

only on breadth of handset implementation, but


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on the depth of integration with native device

APIs.

Commercial, OS-independent AEEs are

attempting to grab an ever-greater share of the

device market. The key contenders, BREW,

Flash Lite and Openwave MIDAS (in addition to

commercial J2ME platform products) will be

facing overweight problems; to deeply integrate

with diverse handsets, AEEs have to cover or

even replicate more and more handset

functionality. There are two avenues open: AEEs

will either have to ensure manufacturers develop

their handsets forthe environment (as is the

case with BREW) or eventually morph into

complete top-half software stacks (as it the case

with Flash Lite).

Portability across chipsets and reference

designs

A flexible OS should be easily portable to

diverse chipsets and hardware reference

designs. There are around 15-20 2G and 3G

reference designs in the market today. Such a

portability will offer ODMs and ODEs more

choice in selecting the reference design that

suits a particular customer project.

A.2 | Linux: Myth and Reality

First things first. According to the homepage of

kernel.org, Linux is a clone of the operating

system Unix, written from scratch by Linus

Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit

team of hackers across the Net.

Linux today is one of the most popular operating

systems for web servers, consumer electronics

and embedded devices. Linux software expands

across a wide range of market segments, such

as mp3 players, internet TVs, disk-on-chip

media, network routers, bar-code readers,

airplane entertainment systems and telephone

exchanges.

The Linux kernel (available from kernel.org)

forms the core of the operating system and

includes hardware drivers, memory, filesystem

and process management, The kernel is

supplemented with hundreds or thousands of

additional software components to form a

complete operating system, termed a

distribution in the case of desktop Linux,

there are hundreds of distributions available

such as those from Red Hat, Debian, Suse,

Novell and Ubuntu.

Linux is unlike most other operating systems,

due to its community-driven nature and its steer

by Linus Torvalds, Linuxs creator and father

figure. This makes the operating system unique

in several important ways, some positive and

some negative:

The Linux kernel supports more

processors types than any other

operating system. No other operating

system runs in everything from a mobile

phone to a TiVo and a radio controlled

helicopter to a network router, based on

diverse processor families and computing

environments.

Linux is evolution, not intelligent design.

There is no design plan, feature requests or

roadmap for the Linux kernel. New

hardware and features are added on an ad

hoc basis. There are no fixed APIs and the

design of the kernel is in constant flux. This

enables developers to ruthlessly optimise

and evolve code without worrying about

retaining backward compatibility this

essentially amounts to faster evolution of

the operating system.


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Linux kernel modifications are illegal and

unethical. Linux has been designed to

ensure that community contributions to the

Linux code are not abused; a vendor

providing modifications to the Linux kernel

must share them back with the community.

Closed kernel modifications are generally

regarded as either illegal or unethical.

Linux platforms (including mobile

platforms) are differentiated too far down

the software stack. The outcome of that is

that when you look at the two dozen or so

Linux phones on the market, they're

relatively un-related, in that they run Linux,but they have little else in common.,

according to Bill Weinberg, spokesperson

for the OSDL, as quoted on

LinuxDevices.com in December 2005.

Commercial distributions take out the

risk. Commercial vendors selectively

integrate Linux code components to form a

product, and add predictability (in terms of

roadmaps), support, warranties,

documentation, and can still be royalty-free.

| Linux for mobile handsets

Why Linux ?

For a manufacturer looking to invest in an

operating system to support the increasing

complexity of its current and future handsets,

there are five choices: BREW, Microsoft,

Symbian, Linux-based OSs and Nucleus-based

stacks. BREW is largely a CDMA play, often

criticised for its high per-unit royalties. Microsoft,

is mostly viewed an option for Tier-2 and Tier-3

manufacturers looking for a one-stop solution for

creating handsets targeted at the enterprise and

prosumer segments. Symbian is now of interest

only to Sony Ericsson, DoCoMo and Nokia; the

Finnish giant is practically in operational control

of the Symbian platform, which discourages

other manufacturers from adopting the platform,

while DoCoMos Symbian-based platform is

Japan-specific. Nucleus as a proprietary RTOS

lacks the feature-sophistication often required for

powering mainstream and high-end phones.

This leaves Linux-based software stacks as a

good choice for manufacturers looking for long-

term investments into a software platform for

their mid-range and high-end handsets. At the

same time, Linuxs lack of a dominant vendor,

ensures that manufacturer risk from vendor lock-

ins is minimized.

As a result, most tier-1 manufacturers are today

investing in significant R&D efforts on Linux-

based OSes, while Motorola has adopted Linux

for its high-end and mid-range devices. Similarly

for major operators, in their strategic evaluation

of software platforms for handset service

development and deployment, Linux appears

rather favourable.

Taking Linux to mobile phones

The software that one can obtain from the

primary Linux download site, www.kernel.org, ison average only 10% of the software needed to

power a mobile phone. For several historical

reasons, development of Linux software has

been focused on the desktop, enterprise and

lately in the embedded and consumer

electronics market.

The Linux kernel and other open source

components are only a small part of the Linux

software distributions that ship in mobile phones;

a large number of closed source components

and proprietary patches have to be added. By

far the most important (and complex) such

component is the telephony software

responsible for call management and 2G/3G

data communication. Telephony stacks are

notoriously difficult to stabilise and mature.

Furthermore, Linux-based distributions have to

be optimised for mobile phones to address

issues such as power management, real-time


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performance, start-up time, in-place execution

from memory, and compressed file systems.

Naturally, the handset application suite also has

to be developed this is the idle-screen, dialler,

contacts, calendar, messaging, media

management, browser and phone settings.

Handset-specific middleware such as device

management, firmware over the air (FOTA),

Java, data synchronization, and graphics

engines must also be integrated into the

distribution.

Linux has never adopted one single UI. Its

architectural openness and vendor

independence has spawned tens if not hundreds

of user interface frameworks for both desktop

and embedded products. There are few

commercial UI frameworks available today for

Linux-based mobile phones, namely Trolltechs

Qtopia family, Mizis Prizm and Digital Airways

Kaleido open source projects GTK+ and

MiniGUI have also been ported to mobile

devices. A range of commercial application

execution environments are also available todayfor Linux-based mobile phones. These include

Trolltechs Qtopia, Mizis Prizm, Openwaves

MIDAS and Adobes Flash Lite.

| The commercial reality

From Linux code to handset

Creating a software distribution for handsets is a

complex undertaking. The distribution has to

source components from different architecture

source trees, and unify them. Mobile-specific OS

optimisations imply around 500 patches to the

kernel and the sourcing and integration of 10s of

additional middleware and application

components. Before being complete, a

distribution has to be optimised for different

processor architectures. Equally importantly, the

distribution has to be tested and verified for

compliance with both industry and operator

requirements, which amounts a long and

arduous process.

Manufacturers, led by Motorola, have created

internal Linux distributions for their handsets,

starting with Motorolas A760 launched in 2003.

Software from commercial vendors MontaVista,

Mizi and Trolltech has been featured on millions

of mobile phones to date, while open-source

products such as GTK+ (a UI framework) and

Gstreamer (a multimedia framework) are

increasingly featured on commercial mobile

handsets.

Taking the code to a product, the first

commercial mobile Linux distributions offering

complete software stacks were announced in

1H06, from A la Mobile, Access Linux Platform,

Purple Labs and Aplix. The revenue model

adopted historically by commercial Linux

vendors has been a combination of per-unit

royalty fees and per-seat licensing of

development tools, although royalty fees are

becoming increasingly disused.

Linux phones today

Motorola, NEC, Panasonic and Samsung have

been the main device backers of Linux. There

are about two dozen handset models which

have shipped to date, including the Motorola

A768, E680i, E680, A760, A780, A910, A1200,

E895, Rokr E2, NEC N901iC, N700i, N900il,

N902i, N902iX, Panasonic P700i, P9201i and

P902i, Samsung SCH-i519, SCH-i819, SGH-

i858, SGH-i878, BenQ-Siemens SXG75, Wistron

Neweb GW1 and the Vitelcom G500i.

Linux shipments have been traditionally strong in

China, where certification requirements are

loose and the government promotes Linux

developments. Linux has surprised most

observers with its strong growth in the Japanese

market. This has been as a Linux-based

platform (MOAP-L) has been developed by

DoCoMo in partnership with NEC and Panasonic,

both strong brands in the local market.


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According to Gartner, nearly 12 million Linux

phones were sold globally by the end of 2005,

with 2006 sales expected to rise to nearly 18

million phones. There were no sales of Linux-

based handsets in Western Europe and North

America by end 2005, primarily due to the

challenges involved with certifying Linux

handsets in these markets and garnering

operator support. A recent sign of change is the

first Linux-based handset for European markets

launched by French MVNO Neuf the handset

supports GSM and WiFi, runs Qtopia and is

manufactured by a Chinese ODM.

Motorola has been the most vocal advocate of

Linux, with 5 million Linux-based handsets

shipped by early 2006, with most running Qtopia

Core (previously named Qt\Embedded) -based

software, according to Trolltech (see product

review in Section C.14). As part of Motorolas

long-term plan to consolidate handset software

development into fewer platforms, the

manufacturer has since 2000 developed two

Linux platforms: EZX, an application suite built

on top of Trolltechs Qtopia Core (previously Qt/

Embedded) UI framework and a newer stack

that replaces EZX, referred to as the Linux-

Java platform. The Linux-Java platform is now

in version 6, targeting mid and high-end

handsets, although it is not clear whether the

platform contains any actual Java code, rather

than just a virtual machine. According to several

sources, Motorola is planning to replace its

proprietary P2K OS used in the RAZR and other

handsets with Linux. Greg Besio, Software VP

for Motorola, confirmed the manufacturers

commitment to Linux in his keynote at

LinuxWorld in August 2006, saying that Linux

will power more than half of Motorolas phones

within the next two years. Motorola has also

open sourced parts of its software stack for the

A1200, A780, E680, Rokr E2 as well as its

MIDP3 implementation for Linux.

Its worth noting that Motorola is also using

TTPComs Ajar for mid- and low- end handsets,

which it purchased in early 2006, and is known

to have been a bidder in the acquisition of

PalmSource in mid 2005. Motorola is also

shipping phones using Windows Mobile and

Symbian/UIQ.

| Benefits and Challenges of Linux

Linuxs open source, decentralised, and vendor-

independent operational model offers a number

of benefits for Linux-based phone product

development:

Linux is designed toavoid single-vendor

domination, minimising the risk of vendor

lock-ins for device manufacturers.

The Linux kernelhas been ported to

more than a dozen chipsets, making it the

most portable operating system to date in

terms of application processors. Linux is

also becoming the preferred bring-up

platform for hardware reference platforms.

Linux is cheap and open to innovation.

Linuxs decentralised, volunteer-based

community offers essential mobile software

components for free and is also a hotbed of

innovation, as evidenced through its rapid

proliferation and Linuxs ties to the

academic communities.

Linuxs widespread use in networked and

embedded appliances, makes Linux-baseddistributions both technically competent

and cost-effective for converged devices.

Several governments, most notably China,

support Linux and have been promoting or

funding Linux projects.

At the same time, mobile Linux development

faces several challenges:


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The Linux kernel is optimised for

desktop and embedded computing

environments, but not mobile handsets.

Linux distributions have to supplement the

kernel with telephony stacks, real-time

support, optimised power management,

Flash filesystem, memory management and

graphics support to name just a few.

Mobile Linux distributions lack the feature

set requested by network operators in

Europe and the US. In addition, mobile

operators are unfamiliar with the

opportunities and idiosynchrasies of Linux

and are hesitating to adopt Linux as a

reliable operating system, with the notable

exception of Vodafone.

There is no consensus on Linuxs APIs.

This implies firstly that integration of

software components within a distribution is

time-consuming and secondly that Linux

applications do not readily port across Linux

handsets.

A major operational and strategic challenge

is mitigating legal challenges. Use of the

Linux kernel and numerous additional

components is governed by the GPL license

(currently in version 2), which dictates that

software works derived from GPLed code

must come with complete source code,

modifiable and redistributable by anyone

free of charge. This is a licensing model that

critics of GPL, notably Microsoft, describe

as viral, due to arising IP contamination

concerns.

Vendors are using a range of measures to

allay legal concerns around GPL, copyright

and patent issues, such as insurance,

technical due diligence, legal due diligence

and vendor indemnification clauses. A

debate is in progress regarding whether the

Linux kernel will adopt the stricter GPL v3

license, currently in draft status and due tobe finalised in early 2007. Due to the

concerns around GPL, components such as

GTK+ have been licensed under the Lesser

General Public License (LGPL) that is more

permissive of derivative works. Other

vendors such as Trolltech and Sleepycat

have adopted dual licensing models.

New developments in Linux productisation

A number of vendors have announced complete

technology productisation and support services

for Linux handsets. These are essentially mobile

Linux distributions that integrate an entire

software stack for phones and provide essential

services such as software customisation,

interoperability testing and certification, such as

FCC and GCF. A la Mobile, Purple Labs, AplixsBTO offering and Access Linux Platform, all

announced in 1H06, are the first commercial

vendors offering productisation services. In

parallel, Vodafone and DoCoMos partnership to

develop a complete mobile Linux reference

implementation is another operator-orchestrated

move in the same direction. In Japan, NEC and

Panasonic have long used a common version of

Linux software stack, which has reduced costs.

A second evolution is brewing. Until recently, the

Linux developer community has had no stable

and standardised phone hardware platform to

test mobile Linux on, as has been the case with

Microsofts early release of Compal AR9

platform and SavaJes Jasper J20 handset. This

is changing with Trolltechs Greenphone

developer kits expected in September 2006 and

Nokias earlier giveaway of 500 units of 770

Internet tablets for $100.

| Standardisation

There are several initiatives in the industry today

attempting to define common APIs and

standards for mobile Linux.

LiPS (Linux Phone Standards) is an industry

forum working to define common APIs at the

application level, including APIs to telephony,

user interface, device management, security,


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application security, and address book. It aims to

use existing components where possible,

modifying them as needed, in cooperation with

existing maintainers. Its first specifications are

expected in late 2006. Current LiPS members

include FranceTelecom/Orange, Telecom Italia

Mobile, Cellon, Huawei, Purple Labs, Texas

Instruments, Trolltech, ZTE, Access/PalmSource,

FSM Labs, Jaluna, Mizi, MontaVista, Open-Plug,

Longcheer, Spreadtrum, A la Mobile, ARM,

Esmertec, McAfee, and Movial Oy.

OSDL (Open Source Developer Labs) is an

industry body working to accelerate the use of

Linux for enterprise computing. Its Mobile Linux

Initiative (MLI) was launched in October 2005 to

identify and fill gaps in the Linux platform and in

the ecosystem above and around it. Members

of the MLI include BT, Intel, Mizi, MontaVista,

Motorola, PalmSource, BenQ Siemens, Trolltech

and Wind River.

At the marketing level, MLI aims to promote

mobile Linux, educate operators about Linux and

clarify legal and regulatory issues. At thetechnical level, the MLI is focused on

standardising power management, profiling and

scalability, how codecs are built and deployed,

as well as making Bluetooth, WiFi stacks and

telephony stacks readily available.

A third industry effort comes from the Consumer

Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) which has a

subgroup working at defining various mobile

phone profiles.

The Vodafone and DoCoMo agenda

Perhaps of greatest interest is a commercial

foundation created between Vodafone, NTT

DoCoMo, NEC, Panasonic, Motorola and

Samsung, announced in June 2006. Named the

Open Platform Initiative, the foundation plans to

define and develop a mobile Linux reference

distribution, comprising of both open source and

closed source (proprietary) components. The

foundation intends to publish APIs, architecture

and test suites aimed at helping adopters assess

and demonstrate product conformance to the

platform specification.

This new group consists of companies with

considerable experience in implementing Linux

for mobile phones. The Open Platform Initiative

(OPI) is in early discussions and has not made

any commitments as to the vendors it plans to

endorse, if any. However, given that all four

manufacturers involved maintain internal

distributions including software products such as

Mobilinux, Qtopia Core (previously Qt/

Embedded) and GTK+ we expect the joint

distribution to mix and match existing tried &

tested components.

What is most interesting is that the OPI is led by

two major mobile operators. We believe

Vodafones goal is adopt a mature, complete

and supported Linux-based platform for its

mobile phones, based on its a long-term strategy

of reducing the number of handset software

platforms. DoCoMo already has a successful

MOAP software stack and is a shareholder in

Access and its ALP platform as such, theoperators move can be interpreted as a

software export strategy. We believe that

DoCoMos end game in the OPI could be to

create the software equivalent of the i-mode

alliance and leverage on Vodafone, Motorola

and Samsung to export (and perhaps license) a

MOAP-like platform to Europe, US/China and

Korea, respectively. However, it is not clear

whether (or which) MOAP-L components will be

part of the technology that will be defined by the

Vodafone-DoCoMo foundation.


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A.3 | Java: A False Start, But Efforts Continue

Java is an AEE technology and a programming

language. Introduced by Sun Microsystems in

1999, Java 2 Mobile Edition was once the

mobile industrys favourite buzzword, the

application execution environment that would

standardise application development across all

mobile phones. Since then, Java has been

widely deployed on handsets, with Sun

estimating over 700 million Java-enabled

handsets in the market as of June 2005. Tens of

specifications have been drafted and finalised by

major manufacturers and operators at the Java

Community Process (JCP), the Sun-led forum to

standardise Java. However, the promise of

write-once-run-anywhere software for mobile

handsets has failed to materialise.

Today Java for phones is best described as a

point solution, suitable for games and light

content rendering applications. There is nosingle vendor or single agreed implementation of

J2ME and related APIs. Lack of application

portability, inconsistently implemented APIs

(formally called Java Specification Requests,

JSRs), and lack of access to important device

features have plagued software developers.

Large software houses have to create over 100

different variations of a single Java game to

address all handset variants. Porting a Java

application across device models requires

significant efforts (typically 15-20% of the

original development effort, per device).

Furthermore, Java implementations lack access

to important device functionality, including the

user interface, idle screen and ability to perform

background processing.

The politics at play within the JCP are also to

blame. An indication of the controversies

between JCP members appears in the minutes

of the discussions held during the introduction of

JSR 258. In December 2004, Vodafone Group

voted against the introduction of this JSR, with

the comment, JSR 258 is an attempt by Nokia

to take control of the UI customisation.we

believe Nokia's 258 is really an attempt to limit

UI customisability rather than to provide it.

On the other side of the Pacific, the Java story

has been much rosier. DoCoMos DoJa, a

modified version of the Sun-sanctioned Java

MIDP profile has exposed consistently, richly

implemented functionality to Java developers,

creating a vibrant application ecosystem. The

success of DoJa has largely been due to

DoCoMos advanced DoJa specifications and

the control of consistent implementation on

handsets.

Despite the challenges plaguing Java, there is

still continued investment in the platform, from

both big and small players. Games developers

such as HandyGames and on-device portal

products such as Opera Mini are successfully

utilising Java across a wide range of handsets.

There is continued investment and industry effort

towards deeper, broader and more consistent

support of Java across handsets.

The most notable effort is MSA (Mobile

Service Architecture), a Nokia- and Vodafone-

led initiative within the JCP that was launched in

late 2004 to consolidate and align JSR

specifications. MSA consolidates existing JSRs

into CDLC and CDC architectures, provides

additional clarifications to reduce ambiguity and

fragmentation, specifies additional requirements

(e.g. security and hardware) and provides

compliancy testing tools. The first MSA-

compliant devices are expected by 1Q07. In

parallel, there are roughly 20 new JSRs being

standardized (including MIDP3), covering

functionality in the areas of UI customization,


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telephony, hardware sensors and device

management.

In mid 2006 J2ME is at crossroads. In 1H06

Esmertec and Aplix, two of the main J2ME

product vendors, have gone through a radical

change of management and product strategy,

respectively. In parallel, Sun announced its

plans to take J2ME open source. This could

allow established companies with a strong Java

agenda - such as Vodafone and Nokia - to

define and promulgate their own J2ME

implementations as de-facto standards.

A.4 | Nokia against Symbian

Nokias devaluation strategy towards Symbian is

a commonly known truth in industry circles, but

one that has rarely seen press coverage.

Nokia is Symbians biggest licensee, with the

Finnish manufacturer shipping over 70% of

Symbian-based handsets in the last two years.

At the same time, Nokias S60 platform is not

only a user interface layer and application suite,

but also an application execution environment

and middleware that contains all essential

application and service components. Nokia S60

handsets routinely contain features that then

make it into the Symbian OS, such as the FOTA

and WiFi middleware which appeared in

Symbian OS 9.3, following its introduction in S60

3rd

Edition Feature Pack 1. This is an unusual

relationship between a licensee and its licensor

that essentially pushes the value line continually

lower down the software stack, in favour of the

licensee.

As a licensee shipping around 35 million

handsets a year, Nokia has to pay Symbian in

the order of $100 million a year. As a

shareholder with 47.9% ownership, Nokia

recoups most of that value. However, as analyst

firm Nomura points out, with Nokias share of

ownership and share of shipments in imbalance,

Nokia has demanded reduced per-unit royalties,

most likely against the financial interests of other

shareholders.

We believe that this strategy has not only

devalued Symbian, but has also marred

S60s licensing strategy. With Symbian

software being highly dependent on Nokia,

several manufacturers, including BenQ Siemens

and Panasonic, have painstakingly developed

S60-based handsets, only to withdraw as a

licensee later. We argue that Symbian has

become a software house for Nokia, albeit an

expensive one, given that Nokia does have

extensive Symbian OS expertise in-house which

could in-source OS development.

S60 on Linux ?

A common hypothesis among industry analysts

is that S60 will at some point complement

Symbian with a Linux operating system. There is

plenty of anecdotal information to support this,

but it mostly suffices to entertain a hypothesis,

rather than to build a business case.

According to a senior figure close to Symbian,

porting S60 to run on top of Linux would be a

very expensive project, costing in the order of

$100 million. However, this figure is comparableto Nokias annual cost of maintaining Symbian

OS and is also comparable to the cost of

developing a state-of-the-art handset (with

development of new Japanese handset models

costing $85 to $170 million according to the

publication Nihon Keizai Shimbun).

Nokia has also developed Maemo, a Linux

platform for PDAs which does include a port of

Hildon, a defunct Symbian user interface, but

which lacks the essential telephony stacks.


15/56


Our hypothesis is that Nokia will begin to

gradually use Linux-based open source

components as it grows the reach of S60 lower

down the stack. Based on this hypothesis, we

expect to see high-value software components

port from Maemo onto S60, on top of a Linux

compatibility layer.

S60 vs MOAP

S60 is notthe most successful user interface

layer for Symbian to date. MOAP-S (Mobile

Oriented Applications Platform for Symbian), is a

little known S60-replacement for Symbian OS

based phones that has been co-developed by

DoCoMo, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi and Motorola.DoCoMo invested a total of about 37 billion yen

(approx. $300 million) over two years (fiscal

2004 and fiscal 2005) in six manufacturers which

resulted in the development of MOAP-S and

MOAP-L software layers for the operators 3G

FOMA handsets.

MOAP-S, in the words of a Symbian VP, is by

far the most successful smartphone platform bar

none, given that there are 38 Symbian handsets

in Japan shipped by Fujitsu and Mitsubishi,

Sharp and Sony Ericsson in volumes of around

one million a month. MOAP-S is a rich UI

framework and middleware layer with DoJa

support and comes in two flavours of user

interfaces, one shared by Fujitsu and Mitsubishi

and one by Sony Ericsson and Sharp handsets.

MOAP-S is the evolution of Fujitsus in-house UI,

and is based currently on Symbian 8.1, with a

plan to move to 9.x at the end of 2007. MOAP-S

can cater to wildly different user interfaces from

an advanced 3G phone UI to a 3-line B/W LCD

screen as seen on the Raku Raku 3 handset.

MOAP-L is the Linux-based sister platform for

DoCoMos 3G handsets that includes

middleware, the DoJa application execution

environment and a GTK+ based UI Framework.

NEC and Panasonic have shipped at least

seven handsets based on MOAP-S as of mid

2006, accounting for the majority of worldwide

shipments of Linux-based handsets.

A.5 | Conclusions and Market Trends

Based on the analysis presented here, we

outline five key trends that will shape the mobile

software market through 2006-2009.

Firstly, software flexibility, rather than openness

will be the critical theme for successful operatingsystems. Secondly, as the sale value line moves

upwards towards middleware and upper

software layers, so the core operating system

technology will commoditise. Thirdly, technology

verticalisation is gradually taking place, with

vendors merging or partnering to offer out-of-

the-box pre-integrated software stacks. In

symmetry, the demand for software platforms is

consolidating, with not only manufacturers, but

also enterprises and mobile operators making a

choice of platform.

We believe that 2006 marks a turning point in

the history of Linux as a mobile phone platform,

not only due to Motorolas recent commitment,but the wealth products and support services

from a growing commercial community. Longer

term, we believe Linux-based platforms will out-

survive many of todays credible contestants, as

will Microsofts Windows Mobile.

These five trends are further analysed in

Chapter D.


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Making Sense of Operating Systems, UIFrameworks and Application Environments

The landscape of mobile software today is

exceedingly complex. Hundreds of products

form part of the software stacks shipping in low-end to high-end handsets. The functionality of

each product spans a number of areas, and is

typically described in the vendors own

marketing language; this has resulted in what

one could call Babel of software products, where

understanding the roles, functionality and lines

of partnership or competition across software

products is a complex endeavour.

In exploring the mobile software landscape we

have selected 16 software products including

major operating systems, application

environments and user interface frameworks,

that we compare and contrast next. These

products are A la Mobile platform, Access Linux

Platform, Adobe Flash Lite, GTK+, MiniGUI, Mizi

Prizm, MontaVista Mobilinux, Nokia S60, Obigo

Suite, Openwave MIDAS, Qualcomm BREW,

SavaJe, Symbian OS, Trolltech Qtopia, UIQ and

Windows Mobile.

In this chapter we shed light on the functionality

delivered by each product and compare metrics

of positioning and market penetration for each.The product functionality chart shown on the

next page shows the type of functionality

delivered by each software product, based on

the conceptual model for handset software that

we presented in Section A.1.

For each software product, the Customers &

Licensees chart shows the manufacturers who

have announced mobile phones based on

selected software products. Finally, the market

penetration chart shows a metric of the

effectiveness of the licensing strategy for each

software product; this can be observed by

plotting the age of the software product (in years

since launch), against the number of mobile

phones that have been announced to carry that

product.

Each of the 16 vendors compared here are

further reviewed in Chapter C.

B


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Product Functionality. Classification of selected software products and the functionality they delivered based on a simpl

* full / semi circle denotes full / semi-complete functionality, respectively

ALA ALP FL GTK mGUI MIZI MV S60 OBG OPWV BREW SVJE S

Key: ALA = A la Mobile Adobe, ALP = Access Linux Platform, FL = Adobe Flash Lite, GTK = GTS60, OBG = Obigo, OPWV = Openwave MIDAS, BREW = Qualcomm BREW, SVJE = SavaJe OSWIN = Windows Mobile, NUCL = Nucleus, SKY = SKY-MAP, PURP = Purple Labs Linux, DAW =

Kernel and Hardware Drivers

Middleware

Application Execution Environment

User Interface Framework

Application Suite


18/56

Customers & Licensees. Manufacturers who have announced mobile phones based on selected software products.

Arima

BenQSiemens

Bird

Cellon

Compal

Eastcom

Fujitsu

GroupSenseLtd

Hitachi

HTC

Huawei

IXImobile

Kyocera

Lenovo

LG

Longcheer

Mio

Mitac

Mitsubishi

Motorola

NEC

Nokia

Palm

A la Mobile

Access Linux Platform

Adobe Flash Lite

GTK+

MiniGUI

Mizi Prizm

MontaVista Mobilinux

Nokia S60

Obigo Suite

Openwave

Qualcomm BREW

SavaJe OS

Symbian OS

Trolltech Qtopia

UIQ

Windows Mobile

* Not all customers or licensees are shown.


19/56

Market penetration. Age of software platform vs number of commercial mobile phone models announced carrying the so

Qualcomm BREW

Windows Mobile

Adobe Flash Lite

Mizi Prizm

MontaVista

Mobilinux

Nokia S60

Obigo Suite

Openwave PhoneSuite V7

(basis for MIDAS)Trolltech Qtopia

UIQ

SavaJe OS1

10

100

1000

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Age of platform (years s ince date of launch)

Mobilephonemod

elsannounced

(logarithmicsc

ale)

Fast market

enetration


20/56


Product Reviews

In this section we present reviews for 16 major mobile software products, listed below. These products

have been selected to include major representatives across operating system, application execution

environment and UI framework categories. The page number, key metrics and functionality for eachproduct reviewed are summarised next (for definitions see example below).

key product metrics product functionality areas

page launched licensees models base APPS UIF AEE MIDW KRNL

A la Mobile 18 2H06 0 0 0

Access Linux Platform 20 1H07 0 0 0

Adobe Flash Lite 22 2003 13 140 77M

GTK+ 24 1997 3 8 ~5M

MiniGUI 26 1998 1 0 0

Mizi Prizm 28 2003 1 3 N/A

MontaVista Mobilinux 30 2003 3 25 25M

Nokia S60 32 2001 4 39 ~60M

Obigo Suite 34 2001 25 400 300M

Openwave MIDAS 36 1H06 N/A 0 0

Qualcomm BREW 38 2001 44 170+ ~150M

SavaJe 40 2004 3 0 0

Symbian OS 42 1998 12 100+ 82M

Trolltech Qtopia 44 2000 40 11 4M

UIQ 46 1999 4 13 N/A

Windows Mobile 48 2002 7 22 ~5M

The metrics for each product are included in a summary table at the top of each review, as in the example

below.

Each product review is structured into background, positioning, products, technology and strategy

subsections. Each review concludes with the authors viewpoint on that product.

Vendor and product name Functionality areas: APPS = application suite, UIF = user interface framework, AEE

= application execution environment, MIDW = middleware, KRNL = kernel

Adobe Flash Lite APPS UIF AEE MIDW KRNL

Launched: 2003 Licensees: 13 Models: 140 Base: 77M

Year of product launch # of mobile phone models announced

number of total manufacturer licensees installed base (reported or estimated ~) of mobile phones

C


21/56


C.1 | A la Mobile

Background

A la Mobile is a start-up founded in June 2005,

which came out of stealth mode in June 2006 to

announce its Convergent Linux platform.

The company was founded by Pauline Alker, an

entrepreneur-in-residence working at Venrock

Associates, who secured $3.5 million to launch a

technology-oriented mobile company. Alker

recruited senior figures from Sun and Openwave

and grew A la Mobile into a team of 20 based in

San Ramone, California. The company is

keeping software development in house, but

outsourcing business development and sales to

regional consulting boutiques. A la Mobile will

be looking to close a series B round of funding in

2H06, likely to be in the $10 million range.

Positioning

Convergent Linux can best be described as the

Red Hat of mobile, in other words a complete

Linux distribution for mobile phones. A la Mobile

is addressing an important gap in mobile Linux

offerings: the productisation of a complete

software stack that is stable, integrated,

customised, tested, verified and supported,

much like ALPs proposed positioning.

Unlike most other Linux vendors, a la Mobile is

less about technology and more about a service

proposition. The company is intending to provide

a complete mobile Linux distribution and offer a

choice of components to customers. The

Convergent Linux business model emphasises

on delivering a complete and differentiated

software stack for mobile devices, to compete

with Symbian/S60 and Microsoft.

A la Mobile plans to address both feature and

smart phone segments, initially with dual

processor and in 1Q07 with single processor

architectures.

Product

Convergent Linux, planned for availability in

September 2006, is made up of a complete

software stack, including Linux kernel 2.6, FOTA

agent from Red Bend, Qtopia application

execution environment and user interface layer,

browser, messenger and multimedia framework

components from Obigo AB, Flash Lite player

from Adobe and J2ME virtual machine. The

distribution specifically excludes radio stacks,

which are proprietary to the underlying hardware,

although the company is pre-testing its product

with Hellosoft stacks.

A la Mobile claims to provide a complete set of

tools for building the distribution and configuring

the platform as well as tools for product testing

and QA.

Technology

A la Mobiles technology portfolio is made up of

two components, the hardware mobility engine

(HME) and the network mobility engine (NME).

The HME is a low-level porting technology that

allows the binary image of a complete operating

system to be reused across hardware reference

designs. The HME is a set of hardware drivers

(which are normally part of the kernel) that

abstract the idiosyncrasies of the underlying

hardware components from the operating

system. A la Mobile plans to produce a different

HME for each supported mobile phone

applications processor, with support for ARM9

and ARM 11 architectures initially. Each HME

version will present the same uniform API to the

OS above it. This will enable HME-compliant

A la Mobile APPS UIF AEE MIDW KRNL

Launched: 2H06 Licensees: 0 Models: 0 Base: 0


22/56


binary images to run without modification,

recompilation or re-testing on top of any

supported chipset, as reported by

LinuxDevices.com. A la Mobile has two patents

pending on the technology and is investigating

legal implications of separating hardware drivers

away from the GPLd kernel.

The Network Mobility Engine (NME) provides a

policy-based framework for handover of IP-

based services (voice, data and video) between

network transports (e.g. 2G, 3G and WiFi)

without requiring any modification in the network

infrastructure or the IP applications. It also

allows for automatic selection of appropriate

network transport when service is acquired or

lost.

Strategy

A la Mobile is plugging a hole in todays mobile

Linux software landscape by offering a complete,

tested and verified distribution. The software

distribution is tailored to the customer, not only

in terms of middleware, but also in terms of the

user interface.

A la Mobile plans to provide a tailored

distribution to each customer and is paying

particular attention to mobile operators, although

no customer details have yet been announced.

Viewpoint

A la Mobile has, alongside Access Linux

Platform, Purple Labs and Aplixs BTO product,

launched a new breed of solutions bringing

productisation to mobile Linux.

Aside from competition from similar solutions

announced in 1H06, A la Mobile will face several

challenges. The company is planning to offer

tailored distributions to diverse customers, a

promising but risky proposition which will require

considerable funding. We believe that apart from

choosing its partners and customers carefully, A

la Mobile will have to develop state-of-the-art

tools that will allow its engineers and its

customers engineers to rapidly customise,

integrate, test and verify Convergent Linux to

diverse needs.

We also believe that A la Mobile needs to more

effectively communicate its value proposition to

the industry, not only due to lack of industryeducation on Linux, but also the uniqueness of

the companys positioning.


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C.2 | Access Linux Platform

Background

The Access Linux Platform (ALP) was

announced in February 2006, as the

amalgamation of Palm OSs execution

environment and UI, China MobileSofts Linux

kernel and Accesss application and middleware

suite.

ALP marks the meeting point of the three very

different companies. Tokyo-based Access was

founded in 1984 and is traded on the Tokyo

Stock Exchange with a capitalisation of $3-$4

billion. Access develops the Netfront browser

and middleware suite that the company claims

has been embedded on 200 million devices.

Access outbid several potential acquirers

including Motorola, to acquire PalmSource in

September 2005 paying an 83% premium on itsordinary stock price.

PalmSource was created as an operating

subsidiary of Palm, Inc. during 2001 and

subsequently spun out of its parent as a

separate business in November 2003. PalmOS

has been particularly successful as an OS for

PDAs in the US, but has suffered from repeat

execution blunders and the loss of both

committed licensees, Sony and Palm.

PalmSource acquired China MobileSoft (CMS)

in February 2005 in an effort to shift its

development focus above the value line. CMS

products comprise of a Linux kernel (mLinux), a

complete handset operating system (mFone)

and an application suite. CMS products have

already shipped in more than a million phones,

according to the company, while it counts some

eleven different phone manufacturers among its

customers.

Development of the ALP software is out of

PalmSources California offices, where Access

US also moved. According to internal sources,

the environment within ALP office resembles a

start-up with roadmaps and development

milestones in flux.

Positioning

The Access Linux platform is intended to provide

a complete software stack, encompassing kernel,

middleware, Palm- and Linux- based application

execution environments, UI framework and

application suite. The company hopes to begin

licensing the ALP platform to hardware and

software developers by the end of 2006, and

expects to see devices based on it reach

consumers in late 2007.

As a complete operating system, ALP is

competing with Symbian and Windows Mobile.

To challenge the incumbent players, ALP plans

to develop new software components at the

kernel and UI framework layers, while leveraging

from the open source community and existing

Access and PalmSource technology. ALP will

certainly benefit from the existing 400,000

registered members of the Palm OS developer

program and the 25,000 reported application

titles. The company launched a new Developer

Network programme to transition these

developers and applications to the ALP platform,

a task that wont be easy due to lack of handsets

and the need for application porting.

There are yet no announcements as to the

manufacturers that will be releasing ALP-based

handsets, although they are likely to be vendors

already using Access software.

Access Linux Platform APPS UIF AEE MIDW KRNL

Launched: 1H07 Licensees: 0 Models: 0 Base: 0


24/56


Product

Access has published a detailed plan for the

make-up of the ALP platform. ALP comprises of

the full software stack, starting with Linux Kernel

2.6.12 (replaceable by the manufacturer). At the

middleware level ALP features a full telephony

framework and a messaging framework

supporting SMS, MMS, email and IM, as well as

a Java virtual machine (a choice between

PalmSources IBM-licensed JVM and Access

Sun-licensed JVM). An SQLlite database is used

for storing common user data such as contacts,

calendar, profiles and filesystem and making

them easily accessible to application developers.

At the UI framework level, ALP features MAX, an

adaptation of PalmSources Rome technology,

supporting multitasking, and both keypad and

touch-screen interfaces; MAX is founded on an

optimised version of GTK+. ALP includes a

MAX-based application suite and the Access

Netfront browser. ALP is designed to run legacy

PalmOS as well as Java and Linux applications.

Technology

It is yet not known how ALP will allow

customisation of the user interface and whether

rapid prototyping tools will be provided. Access

has also made no statements as to the chipsets

that will be supported. What is known is that ALP

will aim to support the existing pool of PalmOS

applications through the Ghost forward

compatibility engine, although we expect such

applications to have to be modified to run on

ALP.

Strategy

We believe Accesss strategy is to provide a

complete software stack based on Linux for the

Chinese and European markets. Alongside A la

Mobile, ALP is one of the first Linux vendors to

build a full Linux distribution. Accesss strategic

priority is deploy ALP on home and converged

consumer devices.

Viewpoint

Access does have an ambitious plan for creating

a single product out of three very different

product suites. This is a daunting task creating

a new operating system is an arduous and risky

project and one that PalmSource failed in their

last attempt with Cobalt OS. PalmSources

disappointing track record with execution with an

outdated OS and limited support for hardware, is

a concern with ALP. According to an SEC filling

by Palm Inc, PalmSource has already missedsome of the deadlines set out in its agreement

with the manufacturer in codeveloping the

PalmOS operating system. A source close to

Palm said summarising the challenges for ALP:

its not enough to have the right ingredients, you

have to bake the cake.

With ALP, Access is addressing an important

need, the development of a complete,

production-ready Linux-based software stack.Accesss plan trades off the limited choice in the

software stack make-up with the stability and

reliability offered by pre-integrating specific

components.

A further challenge for Access would be to

revive the PalmOS community, especially when

applications will most likely have to be re-written,

and engage the Linux community.

Finally, a puzzling question relating to Access is

what is the end-game for DoCoMo (who owns

11% of Access) since the operator already uses

the MOAP layer (see Section A.4). It is therefore

likely that ALP will be aimed at markets outside

Japan.


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C.3 | Adobe Flash Lite

Background

Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash Lite is an

application execution environment and vector

graphics framework for mobile handset

applications. The Flash Lite engine is the mobile

version of the Flash player which, in the PC

world, has become the de facto rich graphic

application environment for websites.

DoCoMo, the company which prompted

Macromedia to develop a mobile version of

Flash, has been bundling Flash Lite on every i-

mode handset since the 505i series in early

2003, as well as its MOAP-based 3G handsets.

In the last two years, Flash Lite has been

featured on Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson,

Windows Mobile and BREW phones. According

to Adobe, as of July 2006, 13 manufacturers

have shipped more than 77 million devices with

Flash Lite on over 140 device models.

Interestingly, this makes Flash Lite more

ubiquitous than Symbian.

Positioning

Flash Lite is an application execution

environment for graphically-rich, interactive

applications such as games and on-device

portals. Over time, the platform has been

evolving to a platform not only for third party

applications, but also manufacturer applications;

the Samsung G900 uses Flash Lite to render the

idle screen and dialler applications.

Flash Lite has been deployed on a range of

platforms and number of mobile devices that few

other software products can boast. The list

includes MOAP, Nokia S60, S40, Windows

Mobile, BREW, GTK+ and MontaVista, as well

as further, unannounced platforms.

Flash Lite boasts deployments by operators NTT

DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank Mobile (formerly

Vodafone K.K), and manufacturers Fujitsu,

Hitachi, Kyocera, LG, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC,

Nokia, Panasonic, Sanyo, Sharp, Samsung,

BenQ Siemens, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba.

The platform is enjoying success across Japan,

Korea, as well as Europe (through Nokias S60

and S40) and North America through a joint

marketing push with Verizon Wireless on BREW

devices.

Flash Lite is licensed to manufacturers on a per-

unit royalty basis, which according to several

sources ranges from $2 down to $0.5 depending

on volume.

Adobe boasts a one-million-strong developer

base for Flash content which notably includes

not only programmers, but also creative

designers.

Product

Flash Lite 1.1 has been criticised for suffering

from high processing requirements, limited

programmability and lack of essential APIs.

Flash Lite 2.0, released to manufacturers in late

2005, is based on the Flash 7 profile, and

significantly increases the breadth of

functionality available and the depth of device

integration. Version 2 upgrades the scripting

support to the richer ActionScript 2, and enables

local data storage, easier loading of external

data and embedded video playback.

The Flash Lite player can be integrated on a

mobile device as an engine for third party

applications, as a graphics framework for

implementing manufacturer applications such as

the idle screen and dialler, or as a browser plug-

in. DoCoMo for example has chosen to integrate

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the player deeply within its handsets so that

Flash Lite contents can be played from the

browser, idle screen, and in some cases from

the call make/receive and email send/receive

screens.

Technology

According to Adobe, Flash Lite is light enough to

run on most mass-market phones with ARM7

class processors, although it is today mostly

available on high-end feature phones and

smartphones. Flash Lite can integrate with the

device to monitor battery life, signal strength,

identify the device model, send SMS messages,

invoke the browser or initiate a voice call.However, as in the case of Java integration, it is

essentially down to the manufacturer to choose

how deeply Flash Lite will be integrated, and

which intrinsic device functionality it will have

access to, which can create subtle platform

incompatibilities across device models.

Strategy

Following the acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe

has been pursuing a long-term strategy that will

see the PDF and Flash platforms merge into a

single product and span across desktop and

mobile environments. Codenamed Apollo, the

initial incarnation of Adobes strategy is a cross-

operating system runtime which allows

developers to build and deploy rich online and

offline applications. Apollo has been announced

for desktop environments, where it will be

competing head-to-head with Microsofts

Windows Presentation Framework.

According to internal sources, the mobile version

of Apollo is 2-3 years away from reaching the

market and will closely follow the roadmap of the

Apollo desktop product. Adobe is also known to

be working on a full user interface framework

codenamed Flip that combines Macromedias

Flex development and Flash execution

environments. We expect Adobe to announce a

complete user interface framework by mid 2007,

as an evolution of its Flash Lite platform.

One of the biggest technical challenges for

Adobe is transitioning the software runtime

environment from being primarily aimed at

animations to being aimed at applications,

according to David Lynch, Chief Software

Architect for Adobe, interviewed by

Knowledge@Wharton in July 2006.

Viewpoint

Macromedia has managed to execute very well

in deploying Flash Lite across over 70 million

devices, given that its royalty pricing is

substantial and competing SVG vendors have

been offering their client for free.

Flash Lite has began to make headway outside

Japan and Korea with Macromedias

collaboration with Verizon Wireless that will see

the platform shipped on Samsung A950, LG

VX9800 and the Motorola RAZR v3C. In Europe,Flash Lite has been shipped on several S60

devices and four S40 devices, further cementing

Adobes product as a prevalent AEE for third

party applications and increasingly manufacturer

applications.

Adobe has ambitions to compete with Microsoft

on a next-generation application execution

environment for rich Internet applications

combining the power and ubiquity of PDF andFlash formats. On the mobile arena, Flash Lite

has been positioned as a complementary

technology to most software platforms, including

S60, MOAP, Windows Mobile and BREW,

however Adobe will need to play its cards

carefully with software vendors as it develops

Flash to a full UI framework and AEE for

manufacturer applications.


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C.4 | GTK+

Background

GTK+ is a software framework for creating

graphical user interfaces, across desktop and

embedded environments. The GTK+ project

started life in 1997 as a toolkit for a raster

graphics editor called the GNU Image

Manipulation Program (GIMP), and has come to

be known as GIMP ToolKit, abbreviated to GTK+.

Positioning

GTK+ is a high profile open source project with a

large, active development community. GTK+ is

royalty free and licensed under LGPL, a lighter

version of the GPL license that allows vendors to

build proprietary applications on top of GTK+;

only modifications to the GTK+ code itself must

be disclosed rather than application source code.

Commercially, GTK+ is used as the basis of the

GNOME Linux-based desktop environment, as

well as the One Laptop Per Child project and the

VMware workstation and server products.

There is no single vendor or owner behind GTK+,

while a number of companies have been using

GTK+ on embedded projects, including Nokia,

PalmSource, Garmin, OpenedHand, Imendio,

KernelConcepts, BlueMug and Movial.

It is worth noting that GTK+ has been integrated

within Nokias Maemo platform (powering the

Nokia 770 Internet Tablet) and is featured within

the Access Linux Platform software stack. It is

understood that NEC and Panasonic devices

designed for DoCoMos FOMA 3G network also

feature a port of GTK+ for mobile handsets. This

alone implies that GTK+ UI framework has been

featured on millions of Linux-based handsets to

date.

As a Linux-based UI framework, GTK+

competes with Trolltechs Qtopia and Mizis

Prizm, with a key point of differentiation being

GTKs royalty-free, LGPL licensing model and

multi-vendor support.

Product

GTK+ is a full UI framework comprising of a

widget set (e.g. buttons, lists), an event handling

mechanism and extends to an accessibility

toolkit and internationalisation framework for

rendering complex scripts.

GTK+ offers a complete set of widgets, making it

suitable for projects ranging from small one-off

tools (such as GIMP) to complete application

suites for mobile handsets. GTK+ lacks a

windowing system, or drivers providing the low-

level interface to the screen. The latest versionof GTK+ 2,0 comprises of more than 600,000

lines of code, more than double the size of its

predecessor, GTK+ 1.2.

Technology

GTK+ is accessible to developers via a C API

and (via bindings) to Python, C#, Java, Perl,

Ruby based applications. GTK+ also features

an XML API for rapidly creating custom screen

layouts and describing interactions, although

that feature has not yet been productised in a

handset environment. GNOMEs recent work on

adding JavaScript programmability to GTK+

should spawn the creation of rapid UI

customisation tools based on GTK+, similar to

Digital Airways Kaleido.

Development of GTK+ based software is

supported by open source tools such as Glade.

Porting GTK+ to embedded handsets is a

relatively low-resource effort according to Jeff

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Waugh, Director of the GNOME foundation.

Porting involves removing unnecessary widgets,

adapting widget rendering, adding font

management and a window manager, according

to Blue Mug, an embedded software company

who ported GTK+ to PDA hardware in 5

engineer-months.

Viewpoint

The popularity of GTK+ has been steadily

growing amongst mobile software vendors and

handset manufacturers due to the products

completeness as a UI framework, its flexibility as

an open source project, its royalty-free use and

its permissive LGPL licensing.

Its use in NEC and Panasonic handsets makes

GTK+ one of the most prominent software

stacks in terms of handset shipments.


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C.5 | MiniGUI

Background

MiniGUI is a user interface framework optimised

for embedded devices. MiniGUI started life in

December 1998, through the work of software

developer Wei Yongming. In 2002, the core

developers of MiniGUI founded Beijing-based

Feynman Software to market and commercialise

MiniGUI. The UI framework is offered today in

both free (GPL licensed) and commercial (non-

GPL) forms.

Positioning

MiniGUI aims to provide a compact, fast, stable,

lightweight, and cross-operating system UI

support system, which is especially fit for real-

time embedded systems.

The MiniGUI UI framework can be used on not

only mainstream mobile phones and WiFi

phones, but also portable media players, set-top

boxes and industrial meters. The product

includes support for Nucleus, and ENEAs OSE

and Linux, some of the most popular operating

systems for mainstream mobile handsets. As a

UI framework, MiniGUI competes with GTK+ and

Trolltechs Qtopia.

MiniGUI is supported on DaTang Mobiles TD-SCDMA 3G hardware reference design,

although there are no known shipments of

MiniGUI-based handsets. According to Feynman

Software, manufacturer Huawei has also

employed MiniGUI as the UI platform for an

IPTV set-top box product.

Feynman develops, markets and supports

MiniGUI, while offering additional software

including an HTML browser, embedded GIS

software and an application suite for embedded

products.

Product

According to Feynman Software, MiniGUI is

optimized for applications with tight resource and

real-time performance constraints. It provides

multi-windowing and messaging mechanisms

and supports enhanced graphics APIs. The

product further supports skins that open the

platform to both provider-centric customisation

and user-centric personalisation.

MiniGUI provides a comprehensive suite of

widgets and supports popular image file types,

Windows resource files, multiple character sets,

font types, and keyboard layouts. The product

also supports multiple keyboard layouts, and

Simplified Chinese input method.

Technology

MiniGUI boasts support for an impressive array

of core operating systems including

Linux/uClinux, eCos, VxWorks, pSOS, ThreadX,

Nucleus, and recently ENEAs OSE. Feynman

Software claims that the product has been

tested on hardware platforms that include Intel

x86, ARM (ARM7/ARM9/StrongARM/xScale),

PowerPC, MIPS, and M68k

(DragonBall/ColdFire). The company offers an

SDK on the Win32 (PC) platform that facilitates

the development and debugging of embedded

MiniGUI-based software.

Feynman Software claims that MiniGUI is

capable of running on a low-end system with 30

MHz CPU and 4MB RAM, with superior

performance to most UI frameworks.

Strategy

MiniGUI is one of the most portable UI

frameworks across operating systems and

supports the most popular OSs in use on mobile

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handsets today. In August 2006 Feynman

Software announced MiniGUI support for

ENEAs OSE real-time operating system (RTOS),

which is featured on Sony Ericsson 3G handsets.

Viewpoint

MiniGUI enjoys portability across a wide range

of embedded platforms and RTOSs. The dual

licensing model of Feynman Software, its parent

company, enables a variety of business uses,

from full-GPL and academic use to own- and

commercial- use. The products traction with

handset manufacturers is limited to China,

although the port to ENEAs OSE operating

system is likely to open doors towards Sony

Ericsson and other European manufacturers.


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C.6 | Mizi Prizm

Background

Founded in 1997, Mizi Research is a Korean

company which today develops embedded Linux

platforms for a variety of devices including

mobile phones, vehicle telematics systems, and

videophones.

Mizi is a company of 55 people based in Seoul,

Korea. The company maintains a network of

technical and sales partners in UK, China and

Japan. Mizi, a privately held company, saw $5

million in 2005 revenues, which they expect to

rise to $6 million in 2006.

Prizm is a suite of Linux-based software stacks

for mobile phones and converged devices which

the company first launched in 2001.

Positioning

Prizm is a software stack combining an

application execution environment, UI framework

and application suite. Prizm Mobile, the phone

version of the product targets primarily handset

manufacturers and secondly mobile operators.

Mizi regards phone software vendors such as

Kingsoft and Emtrace as third

Documents

Mobile Operating Systems the New Generation