The LiMo Foundation – a global group of handset manufacturers, operators, chip makers and other mobile-focused companies tasked with creating a mobile Linux-based open-source operating system that can be quickly designed into a handset – has announced 11 new members today, including Telecom Italia, ZTE, PacketVideo and Freescale Semiconductors. The group also announced that seven new mobile phones have passed the Foundation’s certification process, with handsets from Motorola, Panasonic and NEC becoming the latest to ship with Release 1 of the LiMo Platform. According to Forbes, there are now 21 phones in the world running the LiMo software, with 52 Foundation company members. LiMo was founded in January 2007 by Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic, Samsung and Vodafone.

The LiMo Foundation predates Google’s Open Handset Alliance by nearly a year. Google’s alliance, focused on the development of a mobile Linux-based operating system called ‘Android,’ has 34 members, including China Mobile, HTC, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. Android-supporting handsets are expected to be available by year’s end. Forbes notes that competitors are not standing still. Nokia’s newly-established Symbian Foundation presents a new challenge; although it has fewer members (31) and does not use Linux, it will distribute its popular open-source software to device makers for free and has a much larger market of about 235 phone models. Analysts believe all three consortia are likely to collaborate to some extent in the future. Many of the members of the LiMo Foundation, for example, are also members of the other groups.