In response to the growing presence of Linux in phones, a consortium of companies with a strategic focus on Linux telephony today announced the launch of the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum. The LiPS Forum will accelerate the adoption of Linux in fixed, mobile and converged devices by standardising Linux-based services and APIs that most directly influence the development, deployment and interoperability of applications and user-level services.

The founding members of LiPS Forum are - ARM, Cellon, Esmertec, France Telecom/Orange, FSM Labs, Huawei, Jaluna, MIZI Research, MontaVista Software, Open-Plug and PalmSource.

Haila Wang, president of the LiPS Forum said, "Linux offers an increasingly attractive alternative to proprietary operating systems. By standardising the Linux-based system services and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), we will help to simplify the creation of fully functional Linux phones, ensuring they match the requirements of operators and increasing their appeal to consumers."

According to Canalys, the worldwide market share of Linux has more than doubled in each of the first three quarters of 2005. The nature of the open source development process has meant that the success of Linux in phones, as elsewhere, is reliant on standards that ensure interoperability and guard against fragmentation. To date, standardisation efforts have focused on the important question of Linux kernel optimisation to achieve improved boot time, power management, system footprint and other performance-related factors.