OS battleground moves into the realms of mobile devices
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From: Penang on 25 Mar 2010 00:43 FYI. http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100325PR200.html OS battleground expands from handsets to mobile devices, says iSuppli Press release; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Thursday 25 March 2010] The battle for mobile operating system (OS) dominance is spreading beyond the smartphone arena and into other mobile and consumer devices, forcing developers to create applications and content that can be enjoyed across multiple platforms, according to iSuppli. "Mobile OSes, from Google's Android, to Symbian, to Microsoft's Windows Mobile, have been fighting it out for leadership in the burgeoning smart-phone market," said Jagdish Rebello, senior director and principal analyst for wireless research at iSuppli. "However, with wireless carriers supporting more types of devices on their networks, the mobile OS battle now is spreading beyond the smartphone arena and is entering the larger realm of mobile Internet devices (MIDs), a category that includes netbooks, portable navigation devices (PNDs), MP3 players, automotive infotainment systems and integrated access devices (IADs). With the carriers also supporting multiple OSes, the challenge for developers is to offer application and content that is compelling on multiple platforms." The potential market for such content is huge. iSuppli forecast that worldwide shipments of smartphones and other wirelessly enabled Internet-connected devices are set to rise to approximately 735.6 million units in 2014, almost three times the projected shipments of 262.7 million in 2009. The OS with the most The proliferation of applications for the iPhone and other platforms now has put the spotlight firmly on the importance of high-level OS structure, access to application programming interface, usability and user interactions and behaviors related to the devices, iSuppli said. Today, all of the major OS vendors are working to create an active ecosystem of application developers to create attractive applications for their OS platforms. Handset vendors are working to create customizable and intelligent user interfaces with content aggregation functionality for their devices, while OEMs also are preloading popular social network applications on their devices and opening up their own app stores in order to capture a share of the revenue from the sale of applications. As content and application sharing among multiple devices becomes increasingly important for consumers, connectivity technologies are aggressively penetrating consumer electronics products. Furthermore, content and application compatibility across different platforms is emerging as a critical differentiator for device manufacturers. OS vendors are responding to this trend with the adoption of cross- category operating system strategies, iSuppli indicated, adding that vendors like Nokia and Google are trying to promote OSes that can be adopted across different hardware platforms. Apple's highly- anticipated iPad will use the same OS as the iPhone 3G. Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7 also appears to be targeted at several products besides the smart phone. An accompanied chart showing the projected growth of mobile device can be viewed at http://xs.to/image-7A3E_4BAAE7FB.gif |