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ALP prototype in action

PalmSource has demonstrated its ALP platform at the recent 3GSM 2006 conference. Mobile-review has a few comments on this with photos of some applications on the platform (see the link above). Mobile-review points out that in practice applications for the various mobile Linux distributions will be incompatible, because vendors like to replace system libraries and develop their own middleware.

I can see that this can limit the adoption of Linux in tomorrow's smart mobile devices. However it may be that some of these platforms are not planned for a plethora of applications from 3rd parties. For example a smart phone or a communicator could be just fine for most of its users with the bundled applications, or applications developed by the network operator, used with the operator's services and generating revenue for the operator. (Quite a few operators are not that enthusiastic about 3rd party applications and services which don't send the cash streams their way.) Time will show if mobile application developers will flock to one or two of the Linux platforms, helping it rise into dominance. Nokia's Maemo platform is likely to have an advantage here, as it can easily share the application pool with traditional desktop/PC Linux (with probably tens of millions of users - see The Linux Counter).

posted by Varis @ 09:11