Monday, December 10,2007 @ 4:25pm
Linux group moves ahead with Android alternative
A competing mobile Linux standard is moving ahead despite the threat posed by Google, InfoWorld reports. The Linux Phone Standards Forum, or LiPS, has released the first specification of a new cellular software platform. Like Google's Android, the LiPS software contains APIs for dialing, messaging, and various other user interfaces; it is not however a complete OS, instead being a means of ensuring that programs made for one phone will also work on another, even if certain key components are changed.
LiPS is composed of major European corporations such as Access, Orange, and France Telecom. The group may well be outclassed however by Google's Open Handset Alliance, which is backed not only by carriers including Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, but phone makers such as LG, Motorola and Samsung. LiPS's general manager, Bill Weinberg, admits that if Android is widely accepted, it could "constitute a de facto standard." He insists though that OHA and LiPS aren't "competitive outright," but rather "different approaches to the same problem."