Linux, which has been much maligned by Symbian and Microsoft as a non-starter in the handset operating system market, is set to see strong growth as issues with framework fragmentation and silicon requirements are alleviated.

The open-source Linux operating system is seeing major growth in the mobile and embedded space, especially in the smartphone market. Handset makers and mobile carriers are adopting open-source software because it significantly reduces licensing and development costs and also provides higher flexibility.

Mobile Linux is well poised to take on the surging smartphone market according to a report from the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies Service.

TechCrunch IT are reporting that Nokia has bought Symbian Ltd, the software development company famous for creating the proprietary operating system for mobile devices, Symbian OS.

Linux represents 15 percent of the smartphone market, but that figure should grow considerably, says a market research report. The study, from Strategy Analytics, found that Motorola will continue to drive the growth for mobile Linux, along with Google.

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.

"We were very aware that the growth in mobile for Linux was huge, but we didn't know it was so astronomic," Amanda McPherson, marketing director for the Linux Foundation, told LinuxInsider. "These are very encouraging numbers." Why Linux has drawn significant support from the community of handset manufacturers can be explained on several fronts, McPherson said.

Symbian, the company behind the popular proprietary mobile/embedded operating system of the same name, just turned 10, but it won't see its next birthday. Nokia, which had long owned a substantial portion of Symbian, announced today that it would be buying the rest of the company, 52% for about 264 million euros, or approximately $410 million.

One of the major themes that emerged from this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was Linux, with new Linux-based handset platforms on show and various applications and services for mobile Linux. Could this mean that Linux is likely to be a major rival for other mobile operating systems such as Symbian?