Motorola Launches New Linux Handset; Score is Now LiMo: 22, Android: 0

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Tricia Duryee

mocoNews.net
Tuesday, August 5, 2008; 3:00 PM

Motorola ( NYSE: MOT) announced three new Rokr handsets today, one of which is based on the LiMo Foundation's Linux operating system. That follows a LiMo announcement yesterday that unveiled seven new LiMo handsets from Motorola, NEC and Panasonic Mobile Communications. With these two back-to-back announcements, the platform is clearly picking up speed and for now is knocking Android out of the ballpark. For those keeping score, it is LiMo: 22; Android: 0. No wonder there were rumors recently of Android and Symbian teaming up together.

The new Motorola Rokr with the Linux OS is the EM30 (pictured, far left). The phone is Motorola's eighth LiMo handset and is based on GSM, and is expected to first launch in Taiwan then in other markets this quarter. The phone sounds pretty high-end for something targeted at mass consumers. It comes with GPS for location-based services, and has a nifty feature called ModeShift, which illuminates the keyboard in red when the phone's in music mode and in blue when it's in phone mode.

Pictured: EM30, EM25, EM28 and the already-released E8.