MontaVista Software announced on Monday that it will ship an embedded version of Linux, Mobilinux 4.0, based on the Linux 2.6 kernel.
The announcement follows a MontaVista initiative launched last February targeted at the telecommunications industry.
The Mobilinux Program is meant to work with chip manufacturers, handset makers, and software developers to create a common reference architecture for a mobile Linux operating system to run on cell phones.
What differentiates Mobilinux from other mainstream OSes for handsets is its ability to scale to smart phones on the high end and less able, feature phones on the low end, according to Jacob Lehrbaum, product manager for wireless and mobile at MontaVista.
"Feature phones are where you get the big volumes. There are somewhere in the order of 400 million feature phones," Lehrbaum said.
Alex Slawsby, a senior analyst in the Mobile Devices division of analyst firm IDC, said all of the major vendors are currently rethinking their operating systems in order to broaden their reach.
Symbian, for example, made the latest version of its OS, Symbian 9, more modular so that vendors will be able to pick and choose the components they want for various handset models.
Palmsource completed the acquisition of China MobileSoft this year ostensibly to give the company entry into the Asian market and to port a version of its OS on top of Linux, Slawsby said.
"Linux is bigger in Asia than it is here," Slawsby said.
Mobilinux will allow handset manufacturers to use a single processor for running both voice and software applications, thus reducing the cost of the bill of materials in order to meet feature phone price points. Lehrbaum estimated running Mobilinux would cost manufacturers a fifth of what it would cost if the handset makers used Symbian, Palm, or Microsoft OSes.
"Mobilinux uses less memory and less flash and will use less battery power as well," Lehrbaum said.
Mobilinux 4.0 will ship in the second quarter.
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