Jerry Panagrossi, VP of Symbian's North American operations, believes the Linux platform is not fit for purpose when it comes to working as a mobile phone OS.
"There has been wonderful work, fantastic work in the Linux community in the workstation and PC space, but when you drag that over into the mobile space, there is an entirely different domain with a different set of challenges that handset managers must overcome," he said at the GigaOM:Mobilize conference in San Francisco, according to The Register.
He pointed out the fact that, despite being a common platform, the core OS needs a whole set of proprietary drivers, programs and software to function on a mobile device.
Degree of high fragmentation
"When you ask the Linux solution providers what percentage of software runs across all of their platforms, the answer is near zero per cent. There's such a degree of high fragmentation in that space, and I think it's high time we set the record straight," added Panagrossi.
Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMO foundation was also at the conference, and surprisingly, didn't agree. He maintained there was already an active community of developers for the LiMO platform, where in the case of something like Symbian, it was mainly Nokia (owners of Symbian) behind the work.
The last thing the mobile industry needs is more fragmentation at a time when several OS platforms (Windows Mobile, LiMO, Symbian etc) are competing for consumer affections.
