According to a story at LinuxDevices.com, Trolltech announced today that more than fifty companies are currently developing or shipping Linux-based devices using its Qtopia graphical application platform software, including more than twenty mobile phones.These successes signal “a surge in the market for handsets built on the popular open source Linux operating system.”
Additionally, Microsoft said today that they had a hardware deal to manufacture cheaper Windows smartphones, while PalmSource already released a new PalmOS phone in Europe.
Everywhere you look, Windows is becoming irrelevant. Here’s another good example. And congratulations to Trolltech!
I suggest you read the rest of the story. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile does NOT become irrelevant. In fact, they just signed up for many –and cheaper– phones.
soon i will dump my Nokia cellphone since i heard they are partnering with microsoft and get myself a new Linux Qtopia cellphone…
… which means we are already QT users! 🙂
Of course, I use QT with KDE on my Mandrake and Mepis installations, as well as QT Designer and QMake (which totally rocks).
Put simply, of the various platforms I’ve developed with (including GTK, Win32, Java, QT, and others) QT is by far the best. It’s easy, it’s fast, it’s relatively bug free, it’s fully cross platform, and it’s extremely productive (combining Visual Basic -like productivity with C++ power and efficiency).
Very good, Is amazing how Qtopia handles multimedia.
When will we see a Qtopia based on Qt 4.0?
> Everywhere you look, Windows is becoming irrelevant.
Well, no one sent me the official memo!.
Just read Nokia and MS are doing a deal for Windows Media. Just read MS and Flextronics are working on “peabody”. Never count MS out!. Sure 1.0 and 2.0 of Windows Mobile sucked but they usually get it right by 3.0 and wham – next thing you know they’ve got Palm OS on the mat, Sharp exits Zaurus+Linux, RIM’s hanging on by a thread, Nokia’s going to capitulate on SymbianOS…..
I’m loving my PocketPC + all the apps like Skype/RealPlayer/Word/Money/Opera/games/etc
…ARE irrelevant. And always were.
Microsoft had to PAY a couple of manifacturers to put Windows Mobile on phones, and I’ve never seen one.
And I live in the first or second “cellphone countries” of the world, Italy (probably South Corea beats us).
So called smartphones are already very rare, since most people don’t even know what to do with them. Windows phones are unheard of.
The few reviews I’ve read ’round the net mentioned “phone crashes” and a VERY bulky and unusable phonebook… on a PHONE???
I’ll just press “down” on my lowly nokia 3510i and press the first letter of the name I’m searching, thank you.
Bye, Renato
Just a little side comment.
Sweden and Finland would be the first Cell Phone countries in the world. They developed the technology because such a small amount of people live there on a very large area. Normal phone lines aren’t an economically viable solution. The top players in the Cell Phone industry today, remains Finnish Nokia and Swedish Ericsson (now Sony Ericsson).
sure, Sweden and Finland are the “fathers” of a lot of cellphones, and cellphone use is high, but… trust me, I know what I’m saying: in Italy EVERYONE has a cellphone, in most family each member has one, and in a lot of cases people own more than one.
That’s not counting the work cellphones 🙂
From time to time I hear statistics, and we are always on the top 3 in population/cellphones ratio. I think we were one of the first places where cellphone numbers surpassed landline numbers.
…not that I think I’m really all that proud of these feats… 🙂
No, Renato’s right. Italy comes in at around 91% cell phone ownership, which is more than both Sweden (88%) and South Korea (66%).
Sources:
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=100&v=105
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=100&v=21
Do anyone know somebody who uses a MS phone as his primary cellphone and is happy with it?
An acquaintance of mine recently bought an i-mate sp3i which runs Windows Mobile. It is quite capable little device, and there is nothing inherently bad about it. For windows users the biggest bonus is seamless interoperability with the Windows desktop OS.
On the other hand, the device takes more than a minute to “boot up”
, and almost as long to shutdown.
I know of no one that has a Windows cell phone. What I’ve seen have been embedded C, Linux, or Java Micro Edition.
And frankly, knowing how great an API QT is on the Desktop and server (with KDE and huge commercial titles like Adobe and JDEdwards), I’m sure it will rock on cell phones and PDAs (actually, it is already doing well there with Qtopia).
Windows won’t be able to compete and make money in this arena. The competition is just too good, and way ahead of them, and with out all that terrible MS bagage.
MS relies entirely on the Windows desktop monopoly and the MSOffice dominence (both now showing cracks, thanks to Linux and others) for their revenue. Everything else they do loses money for them, including MSN, Xbox, and WinCE.
I would not go so far as to say MS is irrelevant (they are still an 800 lb Gorilla) in cell phones and PDAs (they are strong in PDAs), but they are not the dominant player in this market, and face an uphill battle. That is very good.
And BTW, QT is excellent! … I know, I already said that, and no, I’m not a Trolltech employee or partner – I just like QT a lot. 😉
Also, I never realized that Italy was so cell phone obsessed. I thought the USA had too many of them, but it seems Italy, Sweden, Finland, and S. Korea have us beat. 🙂
“They developed the technology because such a small amount of people live there on a very large area.”
Just to interject some historical accuracy:
Cellular technology was invented by Bell Labs in the US and the cellular phone itself was invented by Motorola – also in the US. Cell phones have had less penetration in the US than other markets due to the fact that the existing landline system was very well developed.
Oh no!! nokia is parternering with MS they are now EEEVIIILl! right? yeah, real good reason to get rid of your phone..
…agreed. I’ll never own a phone which has Microsoft software on it. No joke.
Can you give some good reasons? I’m just curious..
If Windows CE on PDAs is any indication, then it’s a very good idea to avoid MS on cell phones.
My company makes a product that runs on WinCE, PocketPC, CE.Net, etc (among other things). I know from personal experience and from complaints from our other developers, that the CE platform is terrible. It’s MS’s red-headed step child, and they did a half-ass job of developing it. It is filled with problems, and is so stripped down that anyone developing for the platform has to “reinvent the wheel”.
> My company makes a product that runs on WinCE, PocketPC,
> CE.Net, etc (among other things). I know from personal
> experience and from complaints from our other developers,
> that the CE platform is terrible.
Don’t bitch and moan about Windows/PocketPC!. Obviously your company is raking in bucks on the backs of Microsoft’s products – did you ever offer to make your products for Linux running on Zaurus?. No? Why not?. Oh don’t tell me about Microsoft’s monopoly in handheld markets.
It’s really funny how people lambast Microsoft for all the evils – yet they are the ones making mega bucks off Windows – case in point Opera wouldn’t be popular if they only had a Linux and Beos only browser, iTunes wouldn’t have been popular if Apple had only a MacOSX version, Firefox wouldn’t have been popular if they had only offered a Linux and Mac version. See all these people love to bitch and moan about Microsoft and Windows but they wouldn’t get anywhere until their products run on Windows.
Stop making apps for Windows and just create apps for Linux and sell them ONLY for linux – sure you’re going to starve but atleast that will stick it to the MAN and how else will Linux become popular?.
***
he developes for the platform and says its awful. how does that have ANYTHING to do with linux? how is supporting a platform “making money off its back”? you obviously have no clue what you are talking about.
heres a news flash, it is people who write programs which only work on the microsoft platform are adding value to that microsoft product, i dont think there is anyone who would claim its the other way around. other then a zealot of course.
>he developes for the platform and says its awful. how does that have ANYTHING to do with linux?
It doesn’t. He asked if they made products for linux and if not, why? His inference was that if you are going to complain about the CE environment, then switch to something else (i.e. Zaurus/linux).
>how is supporting a platform “making money off its back”?
Well, I don’t see how this could be anything but obvious, but I guess some people need an explanation. His program is obviously written for the CE, PocketPC, CE.net platform(s). If these platforms didn’t exist, then his program wouldn’t run. If his program didn’t run, then nobody would buy it. And if nobody bought it, he wouldn’t be making any money.
>it is people who write programs which only work on the microsoft platform are adding value to that microsoft product, i dont think there is anyone who would claim its the other way around.
Hmmm…I wasn’t aware that this idea was in question, but I’m pretty sure this applies to any platform…. thanks for stating the obvious anyways.