MontaVista recently announced the release of Mobilinux 5.0, the company's mobile operating system that is used by the majority of smart phones operating the Linux operating system.  Mobilinux 5.0 was designed to help reduce build costs for cell phone manufacturers.

MontaVista Linux is already in use by at least 35 million devices, with more than 90 percent of Linux-based smartphones using Mobilinux.

The latest version of the operating system offers better security, Bluetooth and WiFi support, more power management tools, and Linux 2.6.21 kernel support.  It also ships with SELinux - security-enhanced Linux - a National Security Agency-created version of Linux.

"No other mobile operating system today gives developers so many ways to unleash their creativity to add new functions," said Jim Ready, MontaVista Software CTO and founder.  "Mobilinux 5.0 delivers new technologies invented by MontaVista for configurable dynamic power management, plus a powerful security framework that MontaVista's competitors can only dream about."

Along with the other improvements implemented in Mobilinux 5.0, the mobile phone startup time should also decrease, said MontaVista.  Mobile phones running Mobilinux should boot on average in less than five seconds.  

MontaVista expects Mobilinux 5.0 to globally launch in November.