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Oct. 13, 2008

A new Israeli company is to start shipping a smartphone that runs on Linux to the Russian market, according to various industry reports.

Possibly manufactured by Sharp, Emblaze Mobile's new Edelweiss handset will offer GPS and a 854 x 480 touchscreen, while running ALP (the Access Linux Platform).

On its site, Emblaze Mobile Inc. offers only a spinning 3D Flash image of the Edelweiss, along with a coming soon page.

But a number of people have reported that the phone will go on sale only in Russia sometime in the month of November. The rumor may have originated on the Russian mobile news site, Mobile Review, which has apparently taken down its initial story about the phone.

But sites such as Engadget have already followed up, listing leaked features for the Edelweiss such as the following:

854 x 480 touchscreen

8GB or 16GB of storage

3G cellular capability

GPS functionality

Camera (not listed but visible in photo)

The phone's large screen dwarfs that of the iPhone or HTC's Android-based G1. Surprisingly, the Edelweiss even displays higher resolution screens than the latest version of the Windows Mobile-based HTC Touch HD, which offers 800 x 480 pixels.

At the same time, sharp-eyed widget observers have made the claim that, based on a separate photo in circulation that is not available on the Emblaze site, the phone runs Access Corp.'s Netfront Mobile Widgets, supported by its NetFront Browser.

And Emblaze Mobile earlier announced a Monolith device expected early next year, and expected it to run the Access Linux Platform.

The Monolith project, which Emblaze Mobile claims is the ultimate holistic mobile device was reported exactly a year ago.

According to the breathless prose on the Emblaze website, "this Linux based device is not a mere phone, but rather an application centric device that acts as a full blown media and communications center."

The 5-year Monolith project involves not only Access, but Sharp, which will manufacture the uber-phone. The wireless device also taps contributions from over twenty third-party mobile technology vendors, says the company.

The Monolith will offer an extended-definition touch sensitive display, a high-end camera, and "virtually every wireless connectivity technology known to man," boasts Emblaze. The company goes on to list features including telephony, messaging, personal information management (PIM), push technology, mobile office access, web browsing, mobile media player, and GPS-based location services.

Emblaze Mobile didn't offer information on the availability or pricing of the Edelweiss, but some industry reports say it will ship by the end of this month. The Monolith, meanwhile, will ship in the first half of next year, says the company.

Emblaze Mobile is a subsidiary of the Emblaze Group, a publicly traded holding company comprised of a dozen or so high-tech companies, all located in Israel.

Most of Emblaze's constituent companies are focused on enterprise computing markets, with the exception of emoze, a push email service provider and of several other companies engaged in the wireless video market.

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Source: Emblaze Mobile Inc.