2012 - The Year of the Linux Mobile Phone

According to a Computerworld Singapore report quoting newly published research, 2012 will be the year of the Linux mobile phone, with some 31 percent of all smart phones, or 331 million devices, running Linux. The prediction is based largely upon the fact that Linux has a much faster growth rate than either Symbian or Windows Mobile, some 75 percent year on year.

Symbian is probably likely to be the main casualty, as outside of the US (where it enjoys a market share of less than 10 percent) it claims in excess of 70 percent of the global smart phone business, although the majority of this is restricted to Europe. Things are already very different in Asia, where Linux has a 30 percent market share in China and Japan for example.

The main driver as far as mobile handsets are concerned would seem to be Motorola which has announced it plans to get Linux running on 60 percent of its devices within a two year time frame with the help of the newly created LiMo group.

Motorola has also just announced its Linux based RAZR2 V8 mobile phone handset which it showcased at LinuxWorld in San Francisco a few weeks ago. The Linux RAZR2 V8 has already shipped in India and Vietnam, and the US joins the list this week. It's an important push forward for the mobile Linux market, because this is no niche handset, no geek toy, but rather a mainstream multimedia phone replete with USB 2 connectivity, Windows Media Player 11 codec and an external touch screen display for text messaging. There's also the 2 MP camera with MPEG4 video, and an 8x zoom. The quad-band global support, and a decent HTML browser.

Priced at around $500, perhaps the year of the Linux mobile has actually already arrived.

Where Linux is hot, and where it's not

Do you think you know, I mean really know, where Linux is popular and where it's not? I did, and you know what? I was wrong. I found out, thanks to a new feature from Google: Google Trends.

With Google Trends, you can enter in a word or a term, and find out where it's popular. So, for example, if you entered "Steelers," it wouldn't surprise anyone who knows anything about American football that Pittsburgh is the city where the most people are Googling the guys in black-and-gold.

Notice how I said American football? To the rest of the world, soccer is football, and Linux turns out to much more popular outside of the U.S. than within.

Google's new trend search is normalized. That is to say, the results are weighted not by raw numbers, but by numbers compared to the population. In sheer, raw numbers, the U.S. would lead the way in almost any category. That wouldn't say much. But, by looking at what percentage of a population is interested in a subject, you can see where people have the hottest interest in a given subject.

So, what's the number one city searching for all things Linux? It's Munich, Germany, followed by Hamburg, Berlin, and Frankfurt Am Main. Only Warsaw, Poland, at number three, broke into the German dominated Linux interest list. And, of the top ten, only Sao Paulo, Brazil was from outside of Europe.

Russia, however, is the country that has the most interest in Linux. It's followed by India -- out-sourcing anyone? -- and the Czech Republic. Germany, on the national list, comes in at number nine.

The U.S.? No American city or the country as a whole even makes the top ten.

Heck, for that matter, English-speakers aren't even on Linux's top-ten "language searched in" list. It's the Russians with a wide lead followed by Hungarian- and Romanian-speakers. German, by this metric, comes in at number six.

I don't know why that surprised me. After all, Linux was created by Linus Torvalds, a Finn (eighth in language) of Swedish descent (ninth in language). But, it did.

Now, not everything was a surprise. The top ten cities in the world where people search for SUSE were German. Darmstadt and Munich lead the way, here.

You might think that Americans must lead the way when it comes to Red Hat? Right? Wrong.

The number one and number two cities for searching about all things Red Hat are Mumbai and Delhi, India. The U.S. finally shows up at number three with Austin, Texas leading the way. Hmmm... I wonder if Michael Dell is getting serious about Red Hat Linux on the desktop.

What about the U.S. as a country when it comes to Red Hat interest? Nope, we're not even in the top five. The five countries in the world with the most interest in Red are: India, the Philippines, Russia, Columbia, and Mexico. With the Philippines coming up fast in outsourcing, I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of outsourced data-center work in Red Hat's future.

I was also fascinated to find that India, Indonesia, and Norway are the countries with the most interest in "Linux desktop." The U.S.? Nope, not us. Again, we're not even in the top ten.

Then I wondered, "Where are the most popular Linux desktops the most popular?"

For KDE, you're about to say Germany, right? Wrong again.

KDE is searched for the most in the Czech Republic, with its former national partner Slovakia coming up in second place. Germany comes in at number six.

Even when you break it down to the city level, Prague, takes the checkered flag. After that, however, you'll find Munich, Berlin, and other German cities.

GNOME seems to be popular all over the Western world. While Stockholm, Sweden has the most interest in this desktop, the top ten list includes major cities from all over Europe with San Francisco, Calif. appearing as number nine. Looked at by country, Norway leads in GNOME interest.

However, I dug deeper, and I found that I'm not going to need to add Bengali or Swedish to my long list of languages that I know (1, English). While people from around the world search for all things Linux, what they end up reading tends to be in English and German.

Maybe Americans should start looking more for Linux, though. After all, we lead the way when it comes to looking into whether "Microsoft sucks" or not. Oh, and the city where the most people search on this burning question? Seattle, Wash. Who knew?

No one, however, looks to see if "Linux sucks." Why am I not surprised?