What do titanium legos, “meritocric” processes (is that a word??), and Horatio Ableton the cat have in common? They're all part of Access/PalmSource VP of Engineering Michael Kelley's informative and entertaining LinuxWorld presentation, entitled “Beyond the PC: the realization of Linux in the mobile device… market.”

(Click for larger view of an “ALP-themed” Horatio Albeton contact page)

(Click to enlarge)

Kelley's presentation begins with an objective assessment of Linux's chances of capturing nearly a third of the nascent smartphone market by 2010, as forecast by the Diffusion Group (graph at left).

Kelley then considers the challenges of using open source in the mobile market, where a very different development model has traditionally been the norm. He also looks at the challenges of adapting Linux to mobile devices, where resources are much more constrained compared to the PCs Linux grew up on.

Finally, Kelley gets down to describing the Access Linux Platform (ALP), how the massive Palm developer community fits into Access's vision for mobile Linux phones, and specific problems such as theming and customization that Access/PalmSource is working on.

Although two months old, the presentation is definitely worth a look, if only for the pretty ALP UI screenshots, one of which is featured at top-of-page.

Click here to read the full presentation:

Beyond the PC: The Realization of Linux in the Mobile Device Market
(PDF download)

For those interested in seeing how Access's Linux strategy has evolved over the past year, a detailed interview from May of 2005 with Kelley and PalmSource Director of Product Marketing John Cook can be found here.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.