Motorola Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. on Monday said they agreed to an expanded deal to help mobile telephone service providers use Linux-based computers to run their core network systems.
Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola said the new equipment will be available to carrier customers that use the CDMA mobile network standard popular in the Americas and Asia and Nextel Communications Inc.'s iDEN network.
"Motorola is looking for other avenues for growth," said Hilliard Lyons analyst Tom Carpenter. "They're trying this out to see if it will catch on with the carriers."
The deal, which builds on an existing partnership between Motorola and H-P, will have Motorola sell powerful H-P computers running Linux software as a low cost and more flexible alternative for customers upgrading their wireless networks.
Linux is so-called "open source" software that requires anyone using it to share improvements they make in it with other developers. This process helps ensure that products from various vendors will work together more easily.
Linux is an alternative to Unix, which was developed by the former AT&T Corp. 35 years ago. It has since fragmented into various flavors sold by different equipment vendors, meaning that customers find it difficult to make gear purchased from one vendor work with others vendors' systems.
But analysts cautioned that it will be several years before the new H-P equipment is ready for market. A Motorola spokeswoman said the company is targeting a mid-2005 release.
The H-P equipment will give Motorola's customers "the flexibility to adapt their networks as needed," Adrian Nemcek, chief executive of Motorola's Global Telecoms Solutions business, said in a statement.
Motorola said the equipment will be flexible enough to be used by big carriers in mature markets such as North America and Europe as well as by fast-growing mobile companies in emerging markets.
"It's going to be a lower price offering," said Crowell Weedon analyst Doug Christopher. "What we're going to see more and more more of is the use of Linux," he said.
The equipment will be designed to help carriers simplify network management, with a standard platform for voice calls and data moved over the Internet, as well as H-P's OpenCall radio signaling technology for basic network functions.
The software Motorola and H-P plan to use includes carrier-grade features developed by the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a broad-based industry consortium of Linux backers. Linux inventor Linus Torvalds is a researcher at OSDL.