July 17th, 2007
What is Intel's mobile Linux game?
Intel has a new mobile Linux project dubbed Moblin (right).
It includes a Linux kernel, a framework for a user interface, a browser, a multimedia framework, and embedded image creation tools, along with developer resources.
Sounds great until you realize there are a ton of other, similar frameworks under development. Nokia backs Maemo, Trolltech has Qtopia, and you’ll remember we profiled OpenMoko just a week ago.
So what gives?
Mostly it’s positioning. OEMs like Trolltech, equipment brands like Nokia, and chip makers like Intel are all trying to provide the same value-add, software, to the same ecosystem.
Note whose interests are missing in the paragraph above? Yours. Users don’t count in the mobile world because the right to use electromagnetic spectrum, which should be regulated for public benefit, has been sold for private benefit.
Governments have chosen the quick buck of spectrum auctions to the regulation needed for a competitive market, and we all pay the price in lack of innovation.
So against this network stupidity the equipment gods themselves contend in vain. Open wireless needs more open spectrum before open source can make the market work.
Thus the equipment peleton, including Intel, has plenty of time to jostle for position before the real market climb begins, once we the people figure out that monopolists don’t innovate, innovators innovate.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 07/18/07
