Nokia first device for new OS failed to be launched
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: MeeGo, the Nokia/Intel operating system has been now available for download to netbooks but it is unavailable as an update for Nokia’s N900 device, which runs MeeGo’s predecessor Maemo. The first MeeGo gadgets look set to be netbooks and it has merged Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo into a single open source, Linux-based platform. It has been geared mainly to hybrid mobile internet devices that sit between phones and PCs.
This new breed of highly web-oriented OSS promise optimized support for browser/cloud services and a simplified internet experience besides taking on Google Chrome OS and HP webOS, among others. MeeGo is expected to debut on a new Nokia product, a successor for N900, later in the year while the company has released new firmware for the N900, in the shape of Maemo 5/PR1.2. Release 1.0 is now available for netbooks and for smartphones but the latter will definitely have a head start.
Support for video chat with Skype, SIP or Google Talk, and a Facebook chat in the IM client are included in the enhancements for Maemo along with QT4.6, the standard graphics library for MeeGo. Other features of the OSS are improved user interface for Ovi Maps, a modified virtual keyboard and email client, and the browser can now display web pages in portrait mode.
According to the company, it knew some users would be disappointed, but insisted that it is really about ensuring that they have the best possible experience designed for the features on their Nokia N900 device. N8 will be the next high profile device launch from Nokia which will not run MeeGo but the first open source release of the revamped Symbian platform Symbian^3.
Significant amount of effort and resource have been put in by the Symbian Foundation’s development for release 3, the N8 may not get to claim the prize as the first handset to run the OS. LG, Huawei and Sharp are some of the other Asian manufacturers working on Symbian^3 models. Meanwhile, Nokia has announced that the launch of the N8 will be delayed by a month or more.
Portuguese cellco Optimus selects Tekelec to monitor performance
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Tekelec, a performance management company has been selected by Portuguese cellco Optimus to monitor the performance of its converged next generation network (NGN).
Tekelec’s performance management service will be used by the telco to gain visibility into its network services and subscriber usage as it converges its mobile and fixed assets into a single platform.
In order to increase storage and processing capacity to handle the dramatic increase in subscriber usage data, Optimus is migrating to Tekelec’s next generation Linux-based performance management platform.
Motorola speeds open source momentum with Apache
The biggest obstacle in Java’s path to becoming the dominant software architecture for mobile phones has been its fragmentation – both in terms of technical features and the various licensing schemes adopted by its early exponents. The past two years have seen the handset makers and large operators increasingly taking the steering wheel of the mobile Java movement, seeking to create unified platforms and work around the confusion caused by Sun’s halfhearted open source approach. Motorola has been the most aggressive in recent months, and making itself the leading light in an industry-wide mobile Java framework would certainly score it major competitive points against arch-rival Nokia, which is equally committed to Java, but has tended to plough its own furrow. Motorola’s latest move is to adopt the Apache Software Foundation’s open source licensing process in the hope of making this the standard for Java ME, the mobile version of the architecture.
Motorola will build a Java ME (Micro Edition) software stack using the Apache License Version 2.0, claiming this will help unify the market. It also aims to align its future Java ME-based development with Apache’s model of licensing and open governance.
This is the most definitive move yet to take Java ME out of the hands of start-ups and specialists – and sideline Java owner Sun – and put it into the hands of a broadly respected open source movement. Apache makes the Linux-based web server that dominates the internet world, and last summer Nokia promised to bring this technology to the mobile phone. Together with Motorola’s decision to choose Apache’s particular process for making mobile Java fully open source, this sees Apache hopeful of the same pivotal position in mobile internet that it has in the PC-based web.
We see industry fragmentation and proprietary software models as an obstacle to unharnessing the full power of innovation in the mobile Java ecosystem,??? said Mark VandenBrink, chief platform architect for Motorola’s Mobile Devices unit. We believe developers, customers, partners and the industry at large will benefit from a new open source model.”
A common open source approach adopted across the sector would reduce Java software costs and lower time to market as well as the burden of R&D and testing, creating a larger market and making J2ME viable on all but the most basic phones. This in turn would drive the expansion of multimedia applications – Java’s chief use is as the engine and download platform for content-oriented mobile software – to a wider base. Although other content platforms, notably Qualcomm Brew, now support J2ME in recognition of the architecture’s almost unstoppable progress, it remains confined mainly to high end and some midrange handset models.
A commonly adopted set of Java features, with a unified process for adding new ones and licensing them at no cost, would be one step towards the ultimate carrier goal of a low-royalty handset, and one that would not need to be subsidized. For the first time, Java ME would come close to the ‘write once, run everywhere’ promise that has so far failed to be kept in the mobile world.
Source- theregister Wireless Mobile Telecom
