One of the first product announcements coming from the Las Vegas CES show this week is a real mindtwister from OpenMobile World Wide. It seems the company has developed an Application Compatibility Layer (ACL) that permits Android apps to run on alternative operating systems. The list of compatible operating systems currently includes MeeGo, WebOS and Ubuntu. Soon to come are versions for Tizen, Windows, Bada, and QNX.
If the OpenMobile ACL provides enough performance, the implications are huge for OS developers and for apps developers alike. Currently, there are more than 300,000 apps in the Android market. Development of an OpenMobile ACL for one OS makes that huge mass of apps immediately available on the lucky OS.
If you’re at CES this week, OpenMobile’s booth number is #35484.
