Google, like IBM, now just wades into new markets and tries to take them over, but the LiMo Foundation (Linux Mobile) isn't giving in to Android quite just yet. Today, it has announced that Verizon has joined, and issued a press release claiming a "Further Swell of New Members". It says:
LiMo Foundation, a global consortium of mobile leaders delivering an open handset platform for the whole mobile industry, announced today the addition of Infineon Technologies, Kvaleberg AS, Mozilla Corporation, Red Bend Software, Sagem Mobiles, SFR, SK Telecom and Verizon Wireless as new member companies. Expanding LiMo's membership to 40 since the foundation's launch in January 2007, these companies join with existing LiMo members to collaborate on the LiMo Platform™ -- the world's first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices.
A look at the founder members shows LiMo's weakness: Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics and Vodafone are all from the mobile phone side, not the open source side. This makes Mozilla Corporation's joining a noteworthy event: as the organization behind Firefox and Thunderbird, it's a leader in the open source camp.
Of course, there's nothing to stop companies being a member of both organisations, which have similar aims. The main difference is that LiMo is the usual industry coalition of (more or less) equals whereas Google's Open Handset Alliance is controlled by Google. But since Google is one of the richest and most widely-publicized corporations on the planet, that's not necessarily a disadvantage.
Look, for example, at the ridiculous puffing of the gPhone (2.3m hits) even though it doesn't actually exist. Almost nobody mentions LiMo phones, even though they do.
.png?w=600)
