Nokia announced it plans to acquire all of Symbian, a UK-based mobile phone operating system developer, for £208 million, and will open the software in a move seen as a response to new rival new, Google's Android.

There's been a flurry of excitement about open source in the mobile world in the past few weeks, what with Google's Open Handset Alliance and its associated Android software platform. In all the hype (some deserved, some not), people seem to have forgotten one Very Big Problem in mobile...

While Google and its Open Handset Alliance partners would have us believe that it's all about the customer, the Android open source mobile platform is as much about preventing Microsoft, Symbian and Palm from taking up the top position in the mobile operating system space.

Nokia plans to ship WiMAX-enabled Internet tablets next year. The as-yet unnamed model or models in Nokia's Linux-powered "N-series" Internet Tablet line will use Intel "Baxter Peak" WiMAX chips and will support Sprint's "Xohm" WiMAX service, the top phone-maker has revealed.

A Mozilla-based web browser is available for Nokia's Linux-based N800 Internet tablet. The "MicroB" browser was released last night, by the Nokia-sponsored Maemo community that maintains open source software stacks for Nokia's tablets.

Nokia is on the side of openness in the mobile industry -- in fact, history says it's inevitable, according to, Bob Iannucci, chief technology officer of Nokia Corp.

Google and 33 other companies have announced an ambitious industry alliance that will maintain a completely open source mobile phone stack. The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) says phones based on its Linux-based "Android" stack will reach market in as soon as eight months.

I'm on the go all the time, and sometimes that makes it hard to stay connected. I could carry my laptop with me everywhere, but that can be a pain, especially when I am on my bike. To meet the demands of my daily life I have constructed a lightweight, ultra-portable, Linux-based computing solution.

On Nov. 5, Google unveiled what many in the phone business had long awaited. CEO Eric Schmidt explained how the search giant was ready to create new software for mobile phones that would shake up the telecom status quo.