Verizon Wireless to introduce Linux phones

The foundation released the first version of its software package in March, and Motorola, Samsung, LG and Panasonic have showed off phones using it. Motorola also has older phones that use its own flavor of Linux.

While more than 90 percent of PCs run Windows, the market for cell-phone software is much more fragmented. Microsoft has its own software for "smart" phones. Symbian Ltd., whose main backer is Nokia, sells the competing Series 60 software. Verizon Wireless uses a system from Qualcomm Inc. for most of its phones. Apple Inc. created its own software for the iPhone. Google Inc. is backing an Open Handset Alliance that is creating yet another system, called Android. The first phones running that software are expected later this year.

"The mobile industry really was very reluctant to follow the path of the PC industry and cede the heart of the device to any single company," said Morgan Gillis, executive director of the London-based LiMo foundation. "This is really why Microsoft has not gained any significant traction with Windows Mobile, and also why Nokia has not been successful with Series 60 as an industry platform proposition."

To try to unite the industry, four major handset makers, plus overseas carriers Vodafone Group PLC and NTT DoCoMo, set up the LiMo Foundation last year as an organization that is not governed by any one company, making software that will be free for everyone to use.

Malady said Verizon Wireless chose to back LiMo over, for example, Android, because LiMo unites diverse industry participants in an inclusive governance structure and already has software available already.

Also joining the LiMo Foundation on Wednesday were SK Telecom Co., the largest carrier in South Korea, and the Mozilla Corp., which puts out the popular Firefox Web browser. Like Linux, Firefox is maintained on an "open source" basis, where everyone has free access to the software's blueprints.

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