The Linux Foundation has received its newest member – and first gold member - in the form of China Mobile, in a move which the Foundation believes “could represent a seismic step toward a realignment of OSs in China and the telecommunications industry.”
Although it is the first firm to take on the mantle of gold or platinum membership, China Mobile is in very good company, with fellow members including Motorola, IBM, Cisco, NEC, Fujitsu, HP and Google, among other tier-one technology providers.
The operator is the first Chinese member to join the Foundation, but it will likely not be the last, with several Chinese vendors and equipment providers shipping products, including routers, handsets, notebooks and servers, that operate using Linux.
China Mobile itself has begun deploying Linux, using the OS for a cloud computing system and in its mobile device platform Ophone, which runs on Android. This is seen as an investment in the OS, and the Foundation has hinted that China Mobile’s expertise may be “rolled into Linux specifications” in the future.
