Leveraging Linux for prototyping

Mobile phones are highly integrated devices from hardware and software perspective offering a large amount of applications and services and also including a multitude of peripherals, sensors and other hardware components. What has been an issue in the past for new entrants who want to leverage mobile technology to their products was the “closed environment” aspect. Starting from proprietary RTOS based mobile platforms to challenges in getting mobile phone reference designs.

The world has changed and especially with mobile Linux based operating systems like Android, LiMo, Moblin and Maemo having opened the environment and enabled a fast way to realize your ideas. These platforms already include most of the services you would expect to be supported in a normal mobile phone and there is a large developer community out there which can provide feature add-ons. In addition there are many development boards available on the market now to start a prototyping activity for your idea. So is there really a challenge?

Unfortunately there is not only one challenge, but many. To make the right decisions already from the beginning requires a deep insight into the different mobile platforms, the different available hardware environments, the open source licensing models, the performance related aspects, the available solutions from 3rd party SW suppliers, the SW maintenance aspects, the availability of test harnesses and last not least knowledge of how the mobile ecosystem works.

Simple questions like “Is it possible to leverage mobile platforms to an iPOD touch like device?” or “Can you build an In-Car-Infotainment system using mobile Linux?” can be simply answered with “Yes”. But the “How” makes the big difference. To get hands-on experience for your new idea, the most important aspect is to deliver a proof-of-concept in terms of an early look-and-feel prototype. Leveraging mobile Linux makes prototyping new ideas a lot easier, but still, creating a prototype that can be evolved to your target product requires consideration of many parameters.

A System Integrator like Teleca can help you tackle all these challenges with proven processes and tools to help materialize your new idea. Based on your product idea we can work out the optimum solution for your product and the smartest way towards an early prototype, leveraging existing mobile platforms and open source. Agile development methods will allow for utmost freedom in terms of changing requirements and will lead to a prototype which is as close as possible to your requirements.

For more information about Mobile Linux Solutions, please contact Robert Kempf .