Linux is the mobile dark horse

(Part of 2002 IT Snapshot special. Back to contents

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Mobile operating systems look at first sight to be going the way of the desktop, with Microsoft's much-improved Pocket PC dominating and Palm becoming the handheld equivalent of Apple, sustaining near-fanatical support from a substantial minority.

But the position today is very different from that of the early eighties, when computing needed a standard platform like the IBM PC and Microsoft's operating system around which to consolidate. There is a certain resistance, especially among consumer electronics companies, to giving Microsoft more power. And computing has become far more tolerant of diversity thanks to the web and XML, which provide standard ways to exchange data, and to platform-independent programming languages like Java.

Many analysts believe handhelds will use a variety of operating systems and this is certainly the case today. Symbian, based on Psion's Epoc32 and supported by major mobile phone companies, has yet to live up to the impact of its launch. But it suddenly popped up as Europe's number one handheld operating system for the three months up to October, thanks to its use in Nokia Communicators.

A Taiwanese company called Penbex showed a PDA at Comdex using its own operating system called Penbex OS, which boasts a toolkit and environment to help developers write applications.

Now Linux is emerging as a serious contender. Compaq has been quietly encouraging its use on the iPaq, and the Korean company GMate says it will launch its Linux-based Yopy handheld early next year for around £300.

This is an interesting design in that the 3.5in 240x320 colour screen is set into a flip-up lid, notebook style. But the ABC (as opposed to Qwerty) calculator-style keypad is unlikely to go down well in the West.

More elegant is the Sharp SL-5000D, which is the model with miniature slide-out keyboard that we have previewed in PCW a couple of times recently. It is called a Zaurus in some markets but for copyright reasons Sharp cannot use the name here.

The machine was on show at Comdex, if you looked closely, but Sharp gave a few UK journalists a hour or so to play with it in London in what seemed to be a kind of anti-marketing exercise. We were told: 'Don't encourage people to buy this.'

It is actually available now, as a so-called Developer's Edition, for just £349.99 from here but you have to register with the Sharp developer's site first.

Sharp is hoping that Linux heads will develop lots of tempting commercial applications for it. But the Linux 2.4 kernel will also encourage enterprises with a strong Unix skills base to develop specialised apps. They can also use Java as the SL-5000D packs Insignia's Jeode JVM.

It's a good and usable little machine, even as it stands, boasting both a CF and and SD slot to enable a wide range of expansion capabilities. The graphical Qt interface from Trolltech insulates you from the Linux code and there's a set of basic PDA apps from the same source.

If the open-source community does get inspired by the Sharp, Linux could provide more competition in this emerging market than it ever did on the desktop where people were far more locked into Windows. Handheld prices are lower, and are certain to drop further, so that software will account for a higher proportion of the overall costs.

Microsoft is playing with Pocket PC its usual, highly successful, game of swamping users with features to make rivals look lightweight. But the handheld market could take a couple of years or longer to mature, so rivals have some time to catch up.

A more commercial version of the SL-5000D is expect to ship in the second quarter of 2002. But expect it to cost more than £349.99.

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