Day: June 30, 2005

I was poking around the FCC website again this morning and ran across this motorola linux-based smartphone which was approved recently. The beginning of the manual seems to indicate that this particular model does not have Bluetooth, but I’m guessing that there’s another model out there that does, or BT is a feature that had to be cut from this model for whatever reason. This looks a lot like one of the Linux phones announced a year or so ago, though I’m not “with it” enough to remember exactly which one.

They do have a copy of the GPL (see Appendix 32) in the manual, make use of Gnomovision, and have a bit of a bizzarre “offer to customers:”

Until September 30, 2006 you may request from Motorola the source code for any
Portions of this product which are licensed under the GNU General Public license by
writing to the following address:
Beijing Design Center, PCS
Motorola (China) Electronics Ltd.
No. 2 Dong San Huan Nan. Lu
Chao Yang District
Beijing, P.R. China
100022
Tel. 010-65642288
Fax: 010-65642299

I wonder if they would actually pony up the GPL’d code if you asked. What’s up with that date though? Is that admission of mobile phone shelf life? They do seem to be trying to do things right though. Anyway, just because this is approved doesn’t mean you should expect it on the shelves tomorrow. After looking closer at the external photos it looks like this is indeed one of the models that piqued my interest when it was announced.

Yesterday Jim broke the news that Sendo was in administration (from what I gather, it’s sort of like Chapter 11 in the US):

The affairs, business and assets of Sendo International Ltd, Sendo Holdings Plc, Sendo Telecommunications Limited and Sendo Limited are being managed by the Joint Administrators Simon Appell and Alastair Beveridge. The Joint Administrators act as agents of the companies without personal liability.

I can only guess that the Sendo X’s delays and lackluster sales have something to do with it. It’s really a shame too, because the Sendo X was an awesome little phone.

Today news comes that Motorola will be buying up large chunks of Sendo: R&D, intellectual property (read: patents), and some other stuff. Reuters UK, El Reg, The Inq, and so on.

Motorola hopes that the move will help them push more units in the UK, but that’s going to require more than shiny but vacuous flip-phones.