In this article InformationWeek.com, Jason Levitt suggests that in order to make serious inroads in the handheld computer market, Linux is going to need to provide a standardized platform for applications. Levitt writes . . .

“When Greg Richards went looking for a wireless handheld to connect his 3,500 field engineers, he chose the Linux operating system to power it. 'We needed a tool that could handle a wide range of wireless carriers, run custom Java applications, and provide significant amounts of local data caching,' says Richards, senior manager for global support operations at Sun Microsystems.”

“Richards dismissed market leaders Palm OS and Windows CE. 'Palm OS simply didn't have the horsepower, and Windows CE tends to be slow running Java on certain processors,' he says.”

“The only problem was that there was no commercially available Linux PDA in June 2000, when Richards started the project. Sun solved that problem by outsourcing hardware and software development to other companies. Symbol Technologies Inc.'s model 2700 PDA and a custom port from Linux provider Red Hat Inc. formed the basis of the platform . . .”

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