To reassure its users in India that HTC is fully committed to giving them what they want, the company will launch a Hindi user interface in the coming months.

Darren Sng, senior director of product marketing in Asia at HTC, said to The Mobile Indian, “By December, HTC will launch a Hindi user interface for its smartphones running on Android and after that we would be launching patches for other Indian languages like Bengali, Oriya and so on in phased manner.”

He further added, “When we launch the Hindi update patch, people will be able to download it through the company’s website via a computer. Besides, we are in talks with operators for providing the Hindi update patch over the air to HTC phone users.”

After downloading the Hindi patch HTC users will be able to surf the menu and type messages in Hindi using a Hindi keyboard.

This is an interesting move by HTC to connect with its consumers because Google’s Android 2.2 currently supports only the major European languages and Chinese, but there is no Hindi version of the OS even though Android is one of the most popular smartphone operating systems in India.

Even though the latest version of Android, version 2.3, has addressed this issue, Hindi support is only for surfing the menu and not for typing a message as there is no language support for the keyboard.

It is surprising that even though Hindi is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the world, Android and other major smartphone operating systems don’t have a version of it. Although there are feature phone operating systems in Hindi from both MNCs and Indian brands, the problem is that the letters on the keyboard are usually in English.

Of the population of India, only 11 per cent speak English, mostly for professional reasons. Add to that the fact that India is the world’s fastest growing mobile market with more than 548 million active mobile users. Some studies even suggest that close to 15 per cent of these people use smartphones.

More than 200 million handsets are sold in India annually and only about 11 per cent of these consumers, or 22 million users, know English. This explains why the consumption of value added services is so low in India.

So it is not just in the consumer’s interest to have handsets in the Indian language; operators and the content industry will profit by it as well.

Tizen is a new open source mobile and device operating system based on Linux which will be designed to support multiple device categories such as smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks, and in-vehicle infotainment devices.

The project is hosted by the Linux Foundation with development LED by a technical steering team from Intel and Samsung. Tizen will build upon technologies developed as part of the MeeGo and LiMo (Linux Mobile) projects.

Intel, along with Nokia, was part of the Linux Foundation’s earlier project called MeeGo. “Over the next couple of months we will be working very hard to make sure that users of MeeGo can easily transition to Tizen, and we will be working even harder to make sure that developers of MeeGo can also transition to Tizen.” An Intel representative working on the MeeGo project said on the project’s website.

MeeGo is not dead but Nokia has left it in favour of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 as its smartphone OS. Intel is still backing MeeGo, but will now move to Tizen and will use its knowledge for this new project.

Google recently announced its decision to buy Motorola, which will put it directly in competition with device makers like Samsung, LG, Acer, Asus and HTC who use Google’s Android operating system in their smartphones.

After the move it was widely speculated that the device makers will look for a new OS to hedge the risk. With Samsung already participating in the Tizen project, Acer and Asustek are expected to join it as well. HTC is also evaluating its options (according to Digitimes,) but it is clear that it was indeed keen on a new operating system.

There are several reasons to believe that this project will taste success or will at least remain in focus. Samsung already has a smartphone operating system under its belt with bada (an OS that has seen a fair amount of success,) and will use its know-how to improve Tizen. Intel too has a lot of experience with MeeGo, an OS which techies used to love.

The other reason is that Linux Foundation has a fairly large number of members in Fujitsu, Panasonic, NEC, Motorola, ARM, ACCESS, Casio, NTT Docomo, SK Telecom, Telefonica, Vodafone and a host of others. While it is still not clear what their position with this new project is, we certainly expect to hear some of them joining it soon. Motorola could be ruled out as it is now owned by Google, the biggest rival of this project.

The Tizen application programming interfaces are based on HTML5 and other web standards, which means compatibility will not be an issue. And that is why Linux Foundation anticipates that the vast majority of Tizen application development will be based on these emerging standards.

According to the Tizen website, HTML 5 and web standards based APIs will cover various platform capabilities such as messaging, multimedia, camera, network and social media. For those who use native code in their applications, the Tizen SDK will include a native development kit.

What is also good is that Intel will support Tizen with its Intel AppUp developer program and a developer framework based on HTML5 and WAC standards. Intel is also encouraging developers to continue building and submitting apps for MeeGo netbooks already shipping, apps that will be compatible &#151 unchanged &#151 on Tizen netbooks.
So by the time Tizen OS makes its first appearance, it will have a good stack of apps. A lack of apps had killed HP’s WebOS, which was otherwise touted as a potential iOS killer.

HTML5 and Web Standards support means that this OS will be very suitable for cloud based services like those of Amazon, Google cloud service (Google Drive), Windows Sky Drive and iCloud.

Mobile manufacturers like Huawei and HTC are also trying their hands at cloud services and so are mobile operators across the globe. These companies will like this OS for this reason more than anything else.

Linux foundation will open the entire Tizen software stack from the core OS up through the core applications and polished user interfaces. Tizen and its SDK (software development kit) are expected to be released in the first quarter of 2012, with the first devices hitting the market in mid 2012.

Huawei has announced that it will launch a feature phone, named Expedition, in association with Discovery Communications.

This feature phone is water-resistant, dustproof and anti-shock, and also includes a GPS, torch, compass and G-sensor, making it compatible with travel and outdoor activities. Additionally, it is equipped with Facebook and Twitter social networking capabilities, allowing consumers to share their outdoor adventures and memories with friends and loved ones.

The phone will be commercially available in the fourth quarter of 2011 and will retail through operators and distributors around the world.

“This is the first time that Huawei is creating a co-branded mobile phone with Discovery and we are very excited about providing outdoor enthusiasts with a device that can support their communications and active lifestyle needs. This Huawei-Discovery Expedition phone collaboration is the first of many to come and we look forward to working even more closely with Discovery in the near future to co-create more innovative products that we can share with consumers,” says Victor Xu, chief marketing officer, Huawei.