Sources in Sprint have confirmed that LG is dumping their use of the Obgio web browser in favor of the Polaris web browser from Infraware.
Polaris appears poised to shake up the CDMA browser market…
The Obgio web browser has become popular with phone makers on Sprint in recent years. Sprint’s requirements for Java and JavaScript integration make the Openwave browser unacceptable, and the aging NetFront browser has received little improvement. Newcomers such as Opera have yet to embrace CDMA-specific integrations that are necessary to deploy it. Motorola recently ported Obgio to their BREW platform, bypassing the built-in Openwave browser, and allowing Sprint to launch Motorola phones such as the V3m RAZR and ic902.
However Infraware’s Polaris browser is also a newcomer, but has touted robust CDMA support. However, more importantly, it also adds advanced PC-level capacity to browsing. For example, Polaris supports RSS and AJAX, technologies rarely seen on even Smart Devices of today. While it is not known if LG will deploy these high-end features on their version of Polaris, it is clear that Poliaris will give the CDMA market some badly-needed improvements.
