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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/03/moblin_at_computex/

Moblin Linux boosters go global

The world versus Google

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Operating Systems, 3rd June 2009 20:08 GMT

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Computex Intel continues to push the adoption of the open-source Moblin Version 2 mobile operating system, today using the Computex [1] show in Taipei, Taiwan as its bully pulpit.

At the mammoth trade show, Intel hosted a Moblin Executive Summit to trumpet "the growing ecosystem momentum behind Moblin and demonstrate the richness of the Moblin v2 beta [2] environment." Joining Intel VP Doug Fisher were Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation [3], which took over [4] hosting the Moblin effort from Intel in April, and Wu Ming-ji of Taiwan's Moblin Enabling Center, which was founded [5] in the closing days of 2008 to promote the Linux-based Android competitor mobile operating system designed to run on Intel Atom processors.

Intel also released [6] (PDF) a list of OSVs (operating system vendors) who have committed to Moblin. The global gathering comes from Europe, the US, South America, and Asia, and includes the Asianux Consortium [7] and its founding company Red Flag [8], Canonical [9], CS2C [10], Good OS [11], Linpus [12], Mandriva [13], MontaVista [14], Novell [15], Pixart [16], TurboLinux [17], and Xandros [18].

Of that dozen, seven made their own announcements at Computex:

Moblin is clearly gaining momentum - but so is Google's Android. While Microsoft Windows may be winning the netbook OS war [26], there's a whole brave new world of handhelds, MIDs, media pads [27], smartbooks [28], and the like to be conquered.

And although Google had the stage all to itself at its recent I/O developers conference [29], Computex is big enough for both it and Intel to strut their respective stuff.

And maybe the nascent low-power, low-cost, mobile-internet market will be big enough for both of them to play a significant role. ®