Neowin.net

With thousands of phones in the market, companies are looking for ways to cut costs to give the users the best overall experience, along with a cheap price tag to attract a user base. Mobile phones are now a multi-purpose device, so bringing in both consumers and developers is needed to turn a profit with an overcrowded cell phone market.

Telefonica, one of the largest mobile operators in the world, has joined wireless Linux foundations LiMo, along with five other major operators said they would bring Linux to the mobile phone. The open source platform will introduce a wide variety of customizable applications to the phones.

Major cell phone providers like Vodafone, Orange, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, Korea's SK Telecom, and Verizon Wireless all will introduce mobile phones running the LiMo software later this year. Introducing a Linux phone to some of the largest cell phone markets in the world will grab a firm grasp to users and potentially pose a threat to mobile software developers like Apple, Microsoft, Google and Nokia.