Another big appeal to the enterprise will be security, Moss-Pultz said. "You just don't get viruses on Linux," he said. "And it supports all the existing VPNs, things like Open SSL, all the connectors. All the things you'd want for the enterprise, you've got."

When the initial public version of the device is released this fall, at least one large, well-known company will announce it is committing to the device, Moss-Pultz said. He refused to provide the name of the company.

OpenMoko's architecture, its ability to be customized and the wealth of applications mean that phones based on the system, will become more valuable over time, Moss-Pultz said. And that's something that enterprises will appreciate.

"When you buy a PC, it has almost zero value," he said. "You start adding applications, and it has more value. Usually, though, buying a phone is like buying a new car; you buy it, and a few months later, its value drops."

Will carriers care?
To succeed, mobile phones typically need the support of cellular operators. After all, particularly in North America, most users buy their phones from their cellular carriers. That's the only option with CDMA carriers such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel. And while subscribers to GSM operators such as AT&T and T-Mobile are freer to buy unlocked phones through retail channels, few do. And cellular operators don't seem excited by OpenMoko or the Neo 1973.

"On the carrier side, they've been lukewarm," Moss-Pultz acknowledged. He said he has had talks with AT&T and T-Mobile, with the latter expressing some interest. But a deal is not imminent.

Even more distressing for a phone that will likely depend on word of mouth for its success, industry analysts are cool toward the device.

"Without a carrier behind it, it can't be an iPhone killer," said Craig Mathias, an analyst at Farpoint Group and a Computerworld columnist.

Another problem is that developing applications for OpenMoko is not necessarily the best approach for consumers and enterprises, he said. Instead, a more attractive approach is to build browser-based Web service applications, the approach taken by Apple with the iPhone, Mathias said. Such applications are more secure and can be used by any Web-accessible device, he said.

Avi Greengart, an analyst for mobile devices at Current Analysis, also doubted that the system or the phone will succeed. He noted that there are a lot of Linux mobile platforms, some from high-visibility vendors. Palm is porting its operating system to Linux; Nokia based its N800 Web Tablet on Linux; and Samsung, Motorola, Panasonic, and others are working to create a standard mobile Linux platform.

"If you're an application developer, your goal is to sell applications, so you need the largest possible installed base," Greengart said. And as a new Linux platform, OpenMoko won't have a large enough user base to excite commercial developers, he said.

Gartner's Dulaney was skeptical of Moss-Pultz's expectation that enterprise developers will pick up the slack.

"Enterprises need to hold someone accountable for the platform," he said. "Enterprises need names they know and trust," Dulaney said. "In this case, they have never heard of this company. The likelihood that they can prove to enterprises that they have what enterprises need is low."

However, Moss-Pultz said he is confident that the extreme openness of the OpenMoko platform will attract developers and that the developers' applications will attract users.

"Initially, it'll be for savvy users and people who have used open source products like Firefox," he said. "But I think we're just six months away from being mainstream. When you allow the user to put exactly what they want on the device, you exponentially increase the device's value. I'm confident we can do it."