LiMo builds bridges to operator community

Keen to increase its relevancy across all industry areas, mobile Linux evangelist group the LiMo Foundation is looking to build bridges with the recently formed Wholesale Applications Community.

At Barcelona in February, 24 operators accounting for over three billion subscribers formed the Wholesale Applications Community, an alliance designed to build an open platform for delivering applications to all mobile phone users.

The alliance plans to initially use both the JIL and OMTP BONDI requirements, evolving these separate standards into a common standard within the next 12 months.

LiMo sees itself as a perfect fit here, having already produced standardized white-label SDKs for the LiMo platform in both native and OMTP BONDI-compliant forms, while a number of LiMo’s key stakeholders also hold leadership roles within the JIL initiative.

Since LiMo’s launch in 2007, three major releases of the LiMo Platform have been delivered, with 52 LiMo devices brought to market including the Vodafone 360 H1 M1 devices from Samsung and a wide range of devices for NTT DoCoMo from Panasonic and NEC. Altogether ten operators representing approximately one billion subscribers participate within the LiMo group.

In an open letter to the Wholesale Apps Community, Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation, offered “full support, committed participation, and immediate practical assistance” to the strategy.

“It is clear to us that the highly complementary areas of focus, shared belief in true openness and common industry vision create an exceptional opportunity for deep and long-term collaboration between LiMo Foundation and the Wholesale Applications Community to release unfettered innovation across the industry and fully ignite the mobile internet in a way that is compelling and life-enhancing to consumers everywhere,” Gillis said.