Nokia and Intel collaborating on new Linux-based phone OS called oFono

Between Android and the myriad of LiMo builds out there, we're not sure the world needs another open-source phone operating system, but Nokia and Intel seem to think differently: the two behemoths have joined up to develop oFono, a Linux-based mobile OS for GSM handsets. We don't know many details, but he project seems to be pulling people from both Intel's Moblin initiative and Nokia's Maemo project, and job postings from a "major handset company" searching for a GUI designer in either Dallas or San Jose have appeared, so it sounds like something big is in the works. We'll see.

Read - oFono web site
Read - PhoneDog post about the job listing

[electron @ May 15th 2009 1:16PM]

now that would be pretty friggin awesome!

[GoGoGadget @ May 15th 2009 1:47PM]

lol @ GPRS Access!!!

[AlDeezy @ May 15th 2009 1:17PM]

Nokia should be concentrating on revamping symbian.

[hfm @ May 15th 2009 1:42PM]

@schweppes

Thank you sir, neeed that... +1 to you

[ShinyaAoki @ May 15th 2009 1:55PM]

Isn't that what the symbian project all about?

(I'm not being a smartass, I really don't know)

[Zane @ May 15th 2009 2:09PM]

Theyr already in the process off with the Symbian Foundation...this is for their high end phones.

[TREX6662k5 @ May 15th 2009 3:47PM]

I'd so do her hair.

[John P @ May 15th 2009 1:18PM]

Dallas, eh? Sounds like moto is turning to anything that might bulk up its sales. Or is there another company in Dallas I am missing?

[John McKee @ May 15th 2009 1:44PM]

Nokia's North American headquarters are based in Dallas (Technically Irving, but it's right outside of Dallas).

[y3k.nik @ May 15th 2009 1:18PM]

iPhone...OFono.. I think I will make my own phone and call it aFoni.. only a matter of changing start and end vowels for the most part.

[The Avatar @ May 15th 2009 1:33PM]

How about they all concentrate on making call quality better.

[Schweppes @ May 15th 2009 1:19PM]

They forgot to add the blocks "NOT SUCKING" and "iPHONE Killa!" in this FAIL architecture...

dumb a55 nubes! id rather use a NOKLA then youch anything that comes out of NOKIA...

[strider_mt2k @ May 15th 2009 1:19PM]

Sounds like Pee Wee's secret name for 'em.

[sockatume @ May 15th 2009 1:25PM]

Seems like a tacit admission that Symbian's a piece of crap to me. Android comes out, and instead of getting behind S60 and giving it a big push, they run off and work on this? What's going on in Nokia's head?

[KEROLiUKAS @ May 15th 2009 1:33PM]

"we're not sure the world needs another open-source phone operating system."

Go have sex with your iPhone already. Sheesh, you guys are so closed minded. It's a new system, what can go wrong for us? It will fail? So what. Doesn't hurt to try.

[Ihatemorons @ May 15th 2009 1:53PM]

Because, there's already an infant linux based OS out in the marketplace. The problem is, Nokia just can't be a freaking manufacturer. That's their problem, and yes, Symbian is a piece of crap.

Google comes along, puts out a really solid Open Source OS, and for whatever reason, Nokia just can't buy in, and produce handsets that run Android, oh no, they've got to start from scratch and build another one.

Nokia is a joke. They've been a joke for years. Oh well, just sit back and watch their marketshare continue to fall, that'll tell the story.

[Aaron @ May 15th 2009 1:57PM]

@Ihatemorons
People have been predicting the downfall of Nokia for how long now? 10 years? And yet their market share remains between 35-40% and their profit-per-phone is still way higher than any of the other traditional manufacturers.

[Major4Play @ May 15th 2009 2:45PM]

This will obviously be a Symbian replacement if successful. On Intels side they at least will have an OS to flog their mobile chips with.

@Ihatemorons You must be filled with such self loathing, the worlds biggest phone manufacturer doesn't have to jump into Google's pocket, they are still selling more phones than Apple, RIM and HTC combined, what a joke eh? imagine measuring success by actual sales and not fanboism, iDiot.

[Ettan @ May 15th 2009 2:59PM]

@ihatemorons,

So in your dream world each and every hardware manufacturer would seize all OS development and jump into the Google ship? Shee...

Do you know ANYTHING at all about the advantages of competition? Or in-house software development for that matter?

Why on earth would Nokia "just buy in and produce handsets that run Android"? They are a business (and a freaking excellent one at it) and need to be fighting against competition at all times by any (legit) means necessary. This LEGIT fighting will ALWAYS serve customer's best interest. This is economics for dummies. Like you for example.

Try to get it that Nokia is out there trying to make money. Loads of it. Their interests don't include pleasing the uncommon morons like you.

So far (and for a long time in a fiercely battled market) Nokia's succeeded in their primary goal. MAKING DOUGH.

[KeegdnaB @ May 15th 2009 1:34PM]

For what it's worth, I'm not sure if they honestly need to be dumping S60. From the American perspective, it doesn't seem to hold a candle to any of the offerings from RIM/Apple/Microsoft/Google/Palm etc. but worldwide, it most people are more than satisfied with it. I don't know how much of a difference going to a new architectue would do.

[theluketaylor @ May 15th 2009 1:35PM]

engadget gets your facts straight before posting. This is not an OS. It is an open source library for issuing GSM commands to a baseband radio without knowing any details about the underlying hardware. It could bebused by android, mameo, moblin or one of dozens of other linux based OS's to abstract the placing and recieving of calls

[Aaron @ May 15th 2009 1:58PM]

Another Engadget story debunked...

[alcom4x @ May 15th 2009 2:06PM]

I was wondering why the hell nokia would make another OS when Symbian foundation is about to come out late this year...

[teej @ May 15th 2009 2:33PM]

not to mention they purchased Symbian, so i'm sure the Foundation's gonna help them out.

[Valicore @ May 15th 2009 3:36PM]

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense!

[superhobo @ May 15th 2009 5:20PM]

+1 to you, Sir.

[GoGoGadget @ May 15th 2009 1:43PM]

NOKLA : Think Differently.

[Zane @ May 15th 2009 1:55PM]

Nokia will replace the S40 handsets with S60, leaving Linux for High end (i.e. N series and E series). So they arent ditching Symbian, now that its open source, it will be in most of their hand sets, but their unique OS will be for top end phones (next communicator is linux)

[LuvThaTitsToo @ May 15th 2009 2:03PM]

COOL...Just what I was waiting for...another free OpenSource project (TuxPhone, OpenMoko, Android, iPhone) which will cost someone something and can be sold to the highest bidder later...woohooo!!!!!

[Suomaa @ May 15th 2009 2:08PM]

AFAIK oFono is not OS, to me it's just a bunch of API's to provide GSM/UMTS etc. for Linux based platforms. I'm pretty sure that Nokia is going to make Maemo based phone with 3G support so Nokia benefits from this.

[Fernando @ May 15th 2009 2:12PM]

This. Do your research a little better, it's not a new OS people.

[Naranek @ May 15th 2009 2:11PM]

It's not an OS! It's a telephony stack. Look here for more info:
http://maemo.org/news/announcements/intel_and_nokia_announce_the_ofono_project/
It might end up in Maemo some day, but it might also pop up elsewhere because it's platform independent.

[Brandon L @ May 15th 2009 2:15PM]

First thing I thought of when I saw the title.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WazA77xcf0A

[TareX @ May 15th 2009 2:29PM]

My reflex reply would say why build another Linux OS instead of adopting Android and tailoring it for their pleasure...

But then again that's what I and most people told Palm to do, before we knew about webOS.

[teh_dorkz @ May 15th 2009 2:33PM]

small victory i suppose...not the OS...just that they didnt put a damn i in front of the name..it's pretty annoying to see ithis ithat...frikkin bollocks

[Eddie W @ May 15th 2009 2:36PM]

Well, I'm a little glad this isn't a new OS, wasn't thrilled with Maemo on my 770 tablet, which was too unstable and for which Nokia totally dropped any support for just after releasing the N800. Can't attest to how Maemo is now, because I wasn't about to get an N810 after my experience with the 770.

[andrew @ May 15th 2009 2:50PM]

Your 770 may be given a new lease of life by Mer: http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer - still in development, it's a taking of the best bits of the next version of Maemo, combined with Ubuntu and works on a number of different devices (including all the Nokia Internet Tablets).

It's basically the community taking over from what Nokia's "hacker editions" tried to do.

[Major4Play @ May 15th 2009 2:50PM]

When will Engadget hire writers with technical qualifications/knowledge beyond owning a macbook, some of these stories are getting very embarrassing, to read interesting news only for it to be debunked 4 comments later, sad sad sad.

[Rauha @ May 15th 2009 3:00PM]

lol @ Engadget calling GSM telephony stack and API for LINUX as OS.

Seriously, tech oriented site where writers don't even know operating system is...

[Eric Warnke @ May 15th 2009 3:10PM]

Nokia should get it's act together and settle on something, ANYTHING, and then try to polish it up.

s60 is pretty solid; maemo is, let's face it, a toy even after 4 years in production.

Nokia needs another platform to develop ( aka blow a few billion on ) on like they need a hole in the head.

[Rauha @ May 15th 2009 3:25PM]

As others in this thread have written: It's not a new platform. Engadget is totally misreporting this.

As for Nokia's curent platforms: oFono might end up as Maemo's GSM stack and API for telephony.

[Rauha @ May 15th 2009 5:10PM]

It's explained briefly in the picture Mr. Patel added ,and in more detail in links he put at the end of the article. He either didn't bother to read any of the stuff he quoted or just doesn't have a clue about the stuff he writes about.

[Shyam D @ May 15th 2009 4:05PM]

Nokia has Symbian and Maemo. Both are different types of platforms. While they do plan on integrating them together, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Maemo offers a level of openness that they just can't afford in S60. It allows them to try new things and bring in new ideas. S60 on the other hand is a solid platform that is still making them a good amount of profit. Why would you axe something that is making you money for almost no development cost? It's a good thing you don't run a business, because it would surely go bankrupt fast.

BTW, Maemo is far from a toy. It requires half a brain to use, something you lack apparently.

[rmasson @ May 15th 2009 4:36PM]

The oFono website that is linked to in the article explains exactly what it is on their front page, it takes an effort to misinterpret it to this kind of level. I imagine there was a nice shiny press release from Intel and Nokia that explained it too, cutting and pasting from that would have been more informative.

[recharged95 @ May 15th 2009 4:57PM]

Unfortunate this is typical corporate stuff.
Buying Symbian has been a problem for Nokia:
- transition of Symbian folks == difficulties with the dev culture == politics
- opening sourcing symbian == more difficulties in getting a F/OSS version working with a phone in h/w development.
- Qt == more organization problems galore.

A due to the competition, Nokia needs to ship phones with advanced features 'yesterday'. That adds decision pressure.

Hence, likely want happened over the last year (typical in any big corporation) in Nokia R&D:
1. A symbian camp formed. They merrily build their smoke stack and sell it to the product mgrs.
2. An Android camp formed (yes, there's likely a team of Android devs in Nokia). They merrily build their smoke stack and sell it to the product mgrs.
3. A motorola/LiMo camp formed. They merrily build their smoke stack and sell it to the product mgrs.
4. A bunch of friends from Intel talk with friends in nokia, hence a fono camp formed. And they will merrily build their smoke stack and sell it to the product mgrs.
5. A bunch of friends from Verizon/AT&T talk with friends in nokia, hence a ???? camp WILL BE formed. And they will merrily build their smoke stack and eventually sell it to the product mgrs.

And the product managers(s) throw their hands in the air (and quit) cause they are shipping with S60 series 99? on their hardware cause it's the only thing that works today.

No news here...

[diggit @ May 15th 2009 10:16PM]

Interesting how the job description asks for ARM/Thumb assembly code, yet this is a venture between Nokia and INTEL!!!!

Wonder whats going on there? did XScale execute Thumb code? I would have figured they would be going the Atom x86 route...

[Observer @ May 16th 2009 5:17AM]

Not for a phone...

But there is another possibilities for Moorestown...

[Lomoco @ May 15th 2009 6:56PM]

oFone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WazA77xcf0A

[Michael Le @ May 15th 2009 7:51PM]

Wow. The mobile handset market is getting pretty saturated and heated. There iPhone OS, Android, WebOS, Windows Mobile, and now oFono. There also the iPhone 3G (and a new iPhone model that is expected to be coming out soon), the Palm Pre, the G1, the Storm, and so much more. Wow. Looks like these compainies need to make and/or produce some good hardware and/or software to compete and stay in the game at a respectable level.

[HereAndNow @ May 16th 2009 1:21PM]

Presumably, oFono could be bundled with any desktop Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Fedora, ...). This could become important, if the future generation of netbooks/tablets include smartphone hardware (touchscreen, 3G, GPS, accelerometer, compass, etc.) and support cell phone calls and SMS. Otherwise, you will have a lot of capabilities that will only be accessible when running a smartphone OS, like Android, on it.