At the Mobile World Congress this year, they had a GPS device made by Mio, and a prototype 3G phone running a skin that looked a lot like the iPhone, with gesture-based touch controls. The company has also closed a deal with Samsung to create a reference model which may turn into a bunch of consumer handsets in China, Dorchak said.

The fragmentation in the mobile Linux market provides an opportunity for Soleus, Dorchak said. With Google Android, Montavista, Azingo, ACCESS and others all offering different Linux platforms, Soleus' clear and easy development path could be refreshing for manufacturers. MSI went from concept to phone in five months, a very quick time for the phone industry, Dorchak said.

So what's in the future for this growing OS? A vector-graphics-based UI engine will allow for 3D UI effects, spokesman Brad Zaytsoff said. Support for Web standards within the UI will let developers drop Web widgets on the home screen, just as if they were applications. And Intrinsyc will make it even easier to build "classic OEM feature phones" with their tool kit, Zaytsoff said.