Who Will Win The Fight For Your Smartphone?

[Brad Kenney]

Tracking trends is a game of chance -- a couple things will happen at once, and the discussion starts to reach critical mass pretty quickly. Three feeds came across my Google Reader this morning, in a row, all talking about the developing market for mobile operating systems. Two of them were from the WSJ's morning news batch alone -- one story talking about how hardware heavyweight Dell is looking hard at Google's Android OS, and the other talking about Intel and Novell joining forces to promote Moblin, another open-source alternative to Windows mobile et al. (Editor's note: subscription required.)

Google's been pushing the Open Handset Alliance for a few years now, and has gotten most of the handset hardware manufacturers, and even most of the telecoms to sign on (notable exceptions: Apple, RIM, ATT). I find it interesting that as the market develops, mobile computing devices like smartphones and netbooks are the wave of the future and that the market seems to be tilting heavily towards Linux-based open-source programming, which benefits the user because it's both lower cost and non-proprietary (which has attendant benefits). It would be the equivalent of all the car companies teaming up to offer one shared version of on-board electronics. Which, come to think of it, might not be that bad an idea either. (Maybe Google can get into the car business next?)

[Abogle]

The "smart phone" that will win the fight for my business will be a simple - easy to use phone, with minimal uneccessary features and gadgets - that works when I need it to

nothing more nothing less

[Be Ware]

The problem for any Smartphone open source platform is the ubiquitous nature of Windows products in the corporate environment.

Until you have a critical mass of companies using alternatives to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, & Outlook (or at least programs that can guarantee 100% compatibility) it will be easy for companies (& business users) to stick with Windows Mobile. It's the devil they know and are comfortable with.
It's kinda like Mac Syndrome. You know if you buy a Mac and stick with their suite of software and hardware it will work seamlessly.

This is coming from someone who has been working with OpenOffice for a couple of years now. It's come a long way, but still isn't fully featured or 100% compatible with its Windows counterpart.


This doesn't even take into account the legions of IT professionals who currently make their careers on the back of Windows software.