ABI Research: Moblin Will Ship Most Linux-enabled Mobile Internet Devices by 2013

ABI Research (News - Alert) recently reported that the mobile Internet device (MID) market is shaping up as a very promising greenfield opportunity for mobile operating system vendors looking for new product outlets.

 

The research firm predicted that, by 2013, 86 million Linux-enabled MID products will ship annually, with Moblin taking 42 percent of the market.

 

The MID operating system segment will include fewer OS solutions in the future than the mobile handset segment, ABI said. Windows CE and Windows Mobile will have some place in this market, but Linux in its various forms will take the lion’s share of the sector.

 

Prevalent among these solutions from the start will be Moblin, through its patronage from Intel and its tight integration with the Atom platform. Maemo will also have a notable footprint thanks to Nokia’s (News - Alert) drive to include it in its tablet PC products, ABI said.

 

There will also be a significant market for homegrown solutions based on open source components, as well as LiMo Foundation (News - Alert)-based products.

 

Stuart Carlaw, an analyst at ABI Research, said that although custom-designed solutions such as Moblin and Maemo will take large shares in the Mobile Internet Device market, there will also be opportunities for LiMo as well as PC-based Linux OSs.

 

Carlaw noted that one of the chief reasons for the projected growth of Moblin is that the tight alignment between hardware and software will be an incredibly important factor in this market, and the essential message here is that there is room for multiple success stories.