Verizon backs mobile Linux

It looks likes Verizon Wireless has thrown in its lot with mobile Linux – but it’s the LiMo Foundation platform, rather than Google’s Android platform, that looks like it’s got the weight of Verizon’s backing.

The US operator announced last week that it’s going to be taking up the final seat on the LiMo Foundation’s board and will join the likes of Motorola, Vodafone and NEC as members of the Foundation in promoting an open Linux distribution for mobile phones.

However, according to The Register, Verizon hasn’t said it’s will shun Android entirely (a Verizon exec told the site “We do believe that we will also offer devices with the Android OS”), more that they just prefer the collaborative nature of the Foundation to an OS developed and run by a single company.

While Verizon Wireless would be daft to block any particular OS from its shelves, you can’t help but feel it won’t exactly be giving pride of place to Android now it’s dubbed LiMo as its preferred OS. It’s not the first time the question of openness has cropped up between the two either, but previously it was Google banging the openness gong: Google filed a submission with the FCC asking the regulator to make sure that Verizon Wireless stuck to the open access pledges it made after it won a slice of the 700Mhz spectrum in the US auction earlier this year.