Motorola migrating from home-grown Linux to Android and WM mix

[mkrishnan]

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS8856689287.html
http://androidcommunity.com/no-motorola-android-till-next-christmas-20081030/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10077843-94.html

Motorola has apparently indicated alongside their earnings report that they will essentially drop their internally-developed Linux-based phone OSes as well as Symbian and switch to a mix of all Android and WM.

The comments on Motorola's shift in mobile operating system (OS) strategy came during the earnings call from Sanjay Jha, Co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of the Mobile Devices unit. Jha announced that the company will no longer introduce new phones based on Symbian UIQ, nor on its homegrown MotoMAGX Linux/Java platform. Instead, it will base its smartphones and eventually its mid-market feature-phones on the Linux/Java-based Google Android platform, or on Windows Mobile.

Interestingly, in the same breath, they warned that they would not be selling an Android device until the Christmas 2009 shopping season:

We have read reports that Motorola is expanding their Android development team from 50 to 350. The most recent report saying that we would be seeing an Android-powered Motorola phone as early as first quarter 2009. Co-CEO Sajay Jha, said on this mornings Q3 earnings call, that it wont be seen till next Christmas season. That is a lot later than anyone had anticipated.

In the mean time Motorola plans to be releasing smartphones running Windows Mobile platform including all new models in the second half of 2009. With a substantial loss in Q3, Motorola plans to take a step back with its cell phone market, canceling several models, including those running Nokia’s Symbian OS and its own Linux-Java platform.

Rumors also continue to include an idea that a new Motorola device will offer some kind of innovative social networking features on top of Android, although presumably their stated delay in bowing Android will include this phone:

Business Week reported earlier this week that Motorola was prepping a social-networking smartphone based on Android that will debut in the second quarter of next year. Motorola's Android phone, according to the report, is expected to feature a touchscreen similar to Apple's popular iPhone, as well as a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that allows people to connect to such social-networking sites as MySpace and Facebook.