World's first Linux "PDA phone" on the way?
A Chinese mobile phone hardware vendor and a Singaporean smartphone and PDA phone designer will jointly develop a Linux "PDA phone." Longcheer Technology and Oswin Technology have additionally agreed to jointly market each other's products, which include "knock-down" phones, and smartphones and PDA phone designs.
Oswin is a Singapore-based ODM (original device manufacturer) that designs embedded devices that are manufactured and marketed under various brands by other companies. To date, its PDA phone designs have run Palm OS. The newest version of Palm OS -- Cobalt -- runs on ARM processors, however, and Oswin says its newest PDA phone design -- though built for Cobalt -- can also run Linux and Windows Mobile. That design is called the Zircon A108, and is likely the basis for a Cobalt-based PDA phone that Oswin's Hong Kong-based manufacturing and marketing associate, GSPDA (Group Sense PDA), has pledged to ship.
The Zircon A108 design may figure into Oswin's deal with Longcheer, and could serve as the design foundation for the first-ever Linux-based PDA phone. This could, in turn, result in a widely available Linux-based ODM PDA phone.
