ABI Research is again trumpeting the news that it expects Linux-running mobile devices to enjoy significant growth, thanks to the success of Google’s Android mobile operating system and upcoming Chrome OS.
Based on the findings of a new study, “Linux for Mobile Devices,” ABI said in a July 14 statement it expects Linux, led by the successes of Android and Chrome, to make up 62 percent of the operating systems shipped in all non-smartphone mobile devices by 2015.
“The number of Linux-oriented initiatives recently seen in the mobile industry indicates that Linux will be a key technology in the next generation of netbooks, media tablets and other mobile devices,” ABI Research analyst Victoria Fodale said in the statement. “Despite the growing number of Linux distributions in the mobile market, Linux has a unified base of upstream components, notably the Linux kernel.”
A number of ecosystems-such Android and Chrome, as well as Nokia and Intel’s jointly offered MeeGo OS and Palm’s (now Hewlett-Packard’s) WebOS-are built on Linux components. This model, ABI said, “enables companies to share the cost of research and development, yet differentiate their offerings in the marketplace.”
In an early June report, Fodale similarly forecast that the growth of Linux-based smartphones will outpace that of all other mobile operating systems in the industry. By 2015, ABI said, it expects these smartphones to claim 33 percent of the global market share.
Google, for one, is certainly on board with such ideas. During a May shareholders’ meeting, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, conservatively speaking, more than 65,000 Android-running smartphones were shipping each day. He added that Google in a year went from have one device in one country to having “34 devices with 60 carriers in 49 countries and 19 languages.”
Google is expecting equal success from its Chrome operating system and an open-source program called Chromium.
PC and Mac are currently the two major platforms of choice, Schmidt continued. “In my opinion, [Chrome is] likely to become the third platform of choice for both consumers and the enterprise.”
More information on the ABI Research report is available here.