Motorola Phones run MontaVista Linux

Selected for Flexibility, Stability, and Time to Market Advantages

Motorola PCS (Personal Communications Sector) has announced its third and fourth mobile phone powered by MontaVista Linux, the E680 entertainment phone and the A780 business phone. The first two announced and shipping phones include the A768 and the A760.

The Motorola A760 combines features of a mobile phone with the capabilities of a personal digital assistant (PDA), digital camera, video player, MP3 player, speakerphone, advanced messaging, instant Internet access and Bluetooth™ wireless technology. The A760 was Motorola's first handset demonstrating the company's commitment to making the Linux operating system a key pillar of its handset software strategy.

After the successful launch of the A760 model in 2003, Motorola released the updated A768 with a number of additional features and capabilities.

"We launched A760 in China last fall and are able to now follow up quickly with the A768, exactly the kind of flexibility and speed to market we needed. We chose MontaVista Linux for our smartphone product line, because of its open standards, its unmatched stability, and its industry-leading networking capabilities," said Samuel Li, director, Product Line Management, GSM High Tier Smartphone Product Group, Motorola Personal Communications Sector. "MontaVista Linux, along with other open source embedded software technologies, lets us deliver enhanced multimedia capabilities to our corporate users, combined with numerous integrated business applications, and at a reasonable cost."

The Motorola A768, launched in China earlier this year, was designed to meet the needs of the mobile workforce and offers various messaging options including Email, MMS and SMS, as well as a document viewer for PDF, MS Word, Excel and PPT files. An embedded VPN client provides secure wireless access to corporate network resources, allowing users to access their e-mail, intranet, ERP and other business applications from a remote location. New features of the handset also include full video services capabilities such as video capturing, playback, and download through GPRS/CSD. In addition, the phone comes equipped with an HTML Internet browser and PDA functionality

"Handset manufacturers, such as Motorola, are relying on Linux as a platform for next-generation phones to leverage advanced OS features and to reduce their risk," Jim Ready, CEO and president, MontaVista Software. "As cell phones add capabilities and become increasingly complex, the underlying OS platforms must be flexible and provide a high level of stability. Using MontaVista Linux helps manufacturers quickly and successful bring these advanced products to market."

MontaVista Linux enables handset manufacturers to build a range of advanced and interactive features into their next-generation consumer electronics products, such as the Motorola A768, by providing Dynamic Power Management (DPM), fast boot optimizations, real-time capabilities, footprint savings, and rugged stability. By offering a pre-validated OS platform and development toolkit for mobile designs, MontaVista allows developers to focus on their value-add while enabling them to speed cutting-edge products to market in a cost-effective manner.