Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs) has announced that the company’s OKL4 embedded hypervisor is employed on the Qualcomm (News - Alert) chipset inside the market’s first-ever commercial Android-powered handset. The Dream phone (G1) was introduced by T-Mobile in September and is manufactured by HTC Corporation. This is the first handset powered by the Android software platform developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance (News - Alert).

 

Developers can now provide increasingly complex software for mobile devices—in less time and with less effort with the help of OK Labs’ OKL4 open source embedded hypervisor. They do not have to compromise the reliability and security of those devices to achieve this. OKL4 is strategically positioned as the optimal software architecture for next-generation mobile devices as it focuses on the specific requirements of mobile phones. It also uses proven high-performance microkernel technology, and builds on an open source code base which strengthens its position even more.

 

As a competing platform for reaching a large number of mobile phone users, Android (News - Alert) is likely to attract significant attention from third-party developers. In the next-generation mobile phone deployment environments, the reliability and security benefits provided by microkernel-based OKL4 are essential. The combination of open source software, third-party applications, and Internet connectivity represented by Android is indicative of this factor. At the heart of the G1 is the Qualcomm MSM7201A, a dual-core ARM (News - Alert) family device with hardware-accelerated multimedia, 3D graphics and integrated multi-mode 3G baseband processing.

 

OKL4 is available from OK Labs under open source and commercial licenses.

 

“Collaborative open source development and business models are central to supporting the rapidly-evolving mobile market,” said Steve Subar, CEO OK Labs. “Platforms like OKL4, Android, and other OSes with active, global communities are not just the wave of the future but a fundamental requirement for business today.”