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b - Mobile phone project

Hey Guys, My company are looking at starting an online cell phone project called b

- Mobile. The phone is Linux based, touch screen using Google Android and the GUI development is finished. We are just in the process of finishing an SDK (Software Development Kit) for the phone and we would like to start an online community to develop applications of all sorts.

We plan to sell the phone online for a reasonable cost not anywhere near Blackberry Storm or iPhone money. We do not want to sell phones with contracts that tie you in for 18 months, we want a true open source approach to develop a community phone at a low cost.

We would appreciate your thoughts and guidance to the best approach to starting such a project and I would like to judge the level of interest as we are now a commercial junction point as to how we enter the market. We are a small UK based company specialising in commercial telephone system software and hardware so we are quite new to the cell phone markets.

Reply to
strangepl
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s

Courageous. Very courageous. I suggest you start by looking at the past history of other mobile phone projects with the same stated goals.

Reply to
zwsdotcom

1) You need to actually be able to get the hardware to customers. Not promise it and not deliver. Not hand expedite a few for developers while everyone else waits, CUSTOMERS. 2) The default software needs to work - real customers need to be able to make real phone calls right out of the box. If what you ship is really a kit that is only good for those who want to hack on it and not usable as a phone, interest will die down and you will never get the sales volume to make the hardware affordable. 3) You need to not lock community developers out of key areas of the functionality. This will be hard given NDA's are probably required for the GSM-ish parts of the hardware platform.

As zwsdot said, suggest you look at history - read the openmoko list archives in their entirety for example.

Reply to
cs_posting

My understanding of this issue is that the GSM baseband and other "secret" firmware is generally blackboxed (oftentimes it runs in a separate core or a separate micro). The problem with keeping the platform totally open is usually at the carrier end. Carriers can and do block IMEIs.

(I was recently quite surprised when I put my SIM into a different phone, logged into my AT&T account [on a computer] to check my balance, and saw that it showed a photo and model# of the phone I had just switched on).

Really, the biggest challenge for the open mobile phone developer is the lack of carrier subsidy. Hackers seem quite happy with the iPhone and Android phones, which are available on contract - the cost of having to break carrier locks and so on is offset by the difference between subsidized and free-and-clear prices.

The closest I've seen to a success in the low-cost stakes is the Peek device, which is of course anything but open.

Reply to
zwsdotcom

I'm wondering how you got around the licensing restriction on the Android tools. As far as I can see, they can't be used to build a mobile phone platform.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

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