Mobile devices Toolkit

LiMo Foundation gets more handsets, members

Tom Krazit CNET News

Published: 04 Aug 2008 08:49 BST

Seven new mobile phones have passed the LiMo Foundation's certification process, and the group has a few new members to welcome aboard.

The new phones, from Motorola, Panasonic and NEC, are the latest to ship with Release 1 of the LiMo Platform, a Linux-based operating system for mobile phones developed by a consortium of wireless carriers, handset makers and others. Panasonic and NEC's phones will be available in Japan through NTT DoCoMo.

There are now 21 phones in the world running the LiMo software, mostly in Asia.

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The idea behind LiMo is to give handset makers and carriers the basic underpinnings needed to create a modern mobile phone, but with the freedom to customise the look and feel of those phones to suit their desires.

These are interesting times for the LiMo Foundation, coming off market leader Symbian's decision to embrace an open-source model and the expected debut later this year of Google's Android software. Many of the members of the LiMo Foundation are also members of the groups related to the Symbian and Android projects, which could make for some interesting discussions as the LiMo Foundation works on future releases of the software.

LiMo also announced on Monday that 11 new companies have come onboard, including chipmaker Freescale, PacketVideo and Telecom Italia, bringing the total number of companies involved in the project to 50.

Credit: LiMo Foundation adds new handsets, members from CNET News