operating systems

During a developer conference in Russia, Samsung gave attendees a glimpse of four upcoming handsets that will run on the company's own mobile platform, Bada. On the presentation slide shown above, four handsets priced lower than the Samsung Wave were pictured. Few other details were available, though it appeared that models with slide-out QWERTY keyboards are in the pipeline.

Announced during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) back in February, the Wave is currently the only device to sport the in-house operating system. It was also during MWC 2010 that the company mentioned that Bada was meant for midrange devices, … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Open-source developers and businesses are focused on the wrong opportunity, according to industry luminary Tim O'Reilly. The future isn't programming for Linux or MySQL. The future is programming for the "whole Web."

And it threatens to be controlled by open-source savvy, data-rich companies like Google.

On Wednesday in San Francisco, O'Reilly closed the first day of the Open Source Business Conference by shaking up some comfortable assumptions of the open-source commercial ecosystem, which has tended to focus on commoditizing established markets with low-cost, high-value distribution, all driven by open-source licensing.

This is nice, according … Read more

This week Microsoft showed off some of the awesomeness that is Windows Mobile 7. Er, Windows Phone 7. Or whatever we're supposed to call it now. Actually, even though the new mobile operating system looks cool, some people are still confused by the name.

Is Windows Phone the name of the platform? Is it what we call the hardware on which the OS runs? Both?

Actually, I'm going to take a stab at Microsoft marketing here. The company definitely does things "by committee," as they say, so I'm just going to brainstorm and put out … Read more

The Symbian Foundation has unveiled S^3, the next version of the Symbian open-source mobile operating system.

S^3 is the first entirely open-source version of the platform. Details announced Monday at Mobile World Congress include HDMI support, new memory management techniques, a new graphics architecture, and readiness for 4G support.

The foundation said it expects the platform to be "feature complete" by the end of March.

Read more of "Symbian update will plug into HD television" at ZDNet UK.

BARCELONA, Spain--Steve Ballmer hopes "7" will be Microsoft's lucky number as the company restarts its mobile business with the release of Windows Phone 7.

On Monday, the CEO of Microsoft and his team of Microsoft executives took the wraps off the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system at a press conference here at the Mobile World Congress. The new Windows Phone 7 is a fresh start for the company in mobile.

"There's no question that a year and a half ago we had to rethink everything," Ballmer said.

Instead of revamping Windows … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Executives from Sony Ericsson, the struggling European handset maker working hard to make a turnaround in 2010, said most of its new phones introduced this coming year will sport the Google Android operating system.

On the eve of the Mobile World Congress trade show, Sony Ericsson held a press conference here to show off its three new smartphones due out the first half of 2010. All three phones fit into an existing portfolio of devices that the company is calling the Fab Five. And two of the latest handsets will use Google Android.

The two new Android phones are … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Microsoft is expected to show off the long-awaited Windows Mobile 7 operating system for smartphones at Mobile World Congress, as the company attempts to resurrect itself in this arena and better compete against rivals Apple and Google.

The operating system will be demonstrated during Microsoft's press conference here Monday, according to several reports. News of Microsoft's plans to talk about Windows Mobile 7 at MWC had been reported by CNET's Ina Fried in late January.

Details about the new operating system are still light, but The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the user interface will … Read more

Google's Android is expected to take the smartphone market by storm in the next few years, growing faster than all its competitors, according to an IDC report published Monday.

Android is expected to be the fastest growing wireless operating system from now until 2013, when the software will be the second most used smartphone operating system throughout the world, the report said.

Today, the Symbian operating system, used mostly on Nokia phones, dominates the smartphone operating system market worldwide. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion holds the No.2 spot currently, with Apple in the No.3 spot globally.

The … Read more

iPhone OS 4 is imminent. That's the conclusion I drew from an e-mail I received from a prominent app developer Friday, at least, before hearing from the developer that it was a typo.

The message included the following snippet: "Just wanted to give you a heads up that we've submitted an updated app for the new iPhone OS 4.0 software." (The developer later acknowledged that it meant to refer to a fourth version of the app itself, not OS 4.)

An operating-system update for the iPhone wouldn't be surprising, given the all-but-certain announcement later … Read more