LiMO taps into operators' mobile web fightback

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LiMO taps into operators' mobile web fightback

Linux OS nails its colors firmly to the mast of the cellcos' defense against the open web

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 17 February, 2010

Mobile OSes have been a major theme at Mobile World Congress this year, and each of the main contenders has taken a stab at diluting the buzz around Android, as the Google OS goes mass market. Windows Mobile, the new MeeGo and Symbian all showed off new platforms, but it was the LiMO Foundation that really tapped into the mood of the show - nailing its colors firmly to the mast of the cellcos' defense against the open web.

This has been the defining theme of this show - from the formation of the Wholesale Applications Community by virtually all the top level cellcos, to Vodafone CEO's Vittorio Colao's thinly veiled denunciation of Google and the open model it stands for. If the carriers are to be turned into dumb pipes, or even smart pipes, they will go down fighting for their place at the helm of the mobile apps value chain. This is why the Linux-based LiMO OS is important - while it never generates the profile of an Android or Symbian, it is fully geared to giving the carriers a platform to create their own user experiences, and push their brands and content models to the market, without being behoven to one major vendor.

So Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMO Foundation, headlined his presentation with a wholehearted welcome for the Wholesale Applications Community, formed by 24 large cellcos to create a common developer platform and ecosystem, spanning their three billion combined customer base. This will draw on many of the standards with which LiMO has been closely associated, such as the OMTP's Bondi, and though there is no formal bond between LiMO and the wholesale group, there is a clear convergence of interest and thinking, which can only put the usually undersung Linux OS in the cat seat to gain greater adoption this year - by carriers who want to control their own web user experience, and the handset makers supplying them.

As an OS platform that seeks to eliminate brand conflict between carrier and software/device supplier, we would expect these two operator driven bodies to come ever closer this year.

Vodafone put LiMO at the heart of its 360 own-branded apps platform, and said at the event that the OS had allowed it to bring together its technical strategy and its new consumer proposition, which has only recently taken real account of a developer ecosystem, said head of terminal platforms Phil Carter. Verizon is expected to emulate its partner and introduce LiMO devices later this year, and other carriers with seats on the Foundation's board are DoCoMo, SKT and Telefonica. The interest of these big names should draw new device vendors into the mix, to add to Samsung, which already has the H1 and M1 at Vodafone. Other board members in this group are LG, NEC and Panasonic. These two Japanese players, plus Israel's Else, showed LiMO handsets at MWC, and importantly to any web apps activity, Adobe also joined the Foundation.