LiMo, the foundation that promotes the Linux platform for mobile devices, has announced that seven new handsets have passed its certification and have been announced as LiMo certified devices. What is more, the platform has added 11 new members, thus establishing a stronger presence on the market.

The new mobile phones that have been certified include a device from Motorola, 4 from NEC and 2 from Panasonic. The total number of devices that run the LiMo operating system at this moment is 21. While most of them are available on the Asian market, China being the country where they enjoy the greatest popularity, some of them are available in the United States as well.

Even though LiMo was founded in January 2007 by four mobile phone manufacturers and two mobile phone providers, the foundation has managed to attract companies from other fields of activities too. For example, some of the new members that the foundation has announced are chip manufacturers. At this moment, the foundation has a total of 50 members, but experts are curious whether the LiMo platform will be a successful one or not.

The main reasons to doubt this are Google's upcoming release of its Android platform, as well as Nokia's announcement that it will open Symbian. Even though Android is built on Linux, it is a completely separated platform from LiMo, and the two developers have announced that they will not be compatible. As far as the Symbian threat is concerned, Nokia said that its commitment stays with it, but that it will support LiMo as much as it can.

The 7 new mobile phones that have been announced will be released in Europe and Japan.