Mobile: The New Platform War

Mobile is the future. As we move closer to the much-hyped era of cloud computing, everything will be online. Desktops will serve little purpose but as gateways to the internet that holds our data and the bulk of our interactions. Mobile, however, will still remain an important platform front in the face of a new generation of Web 2.0 applications. As recent announcements by Apple and Google show, the war for control of your mobile phone is serious.

State of the Handset

As technology becomes more sophisticated, users are carrying more and more in their hands. Years ago, it would have been unfathomable for users to carry what amounts to a music player, a digital camera, and a PDA in their pockets. Now that’s possible, and there’s a whole lot more being done with the mobile platform. While much of it is still relegated to expensive phones like Nokia’s N95 and the Apple iPhone, technological advances are slowly seeping their way into the lower-class line of telephones that most consumers use. Bigger processors and batteries are needed to work with all of this equipment, and the processors in these phones are increasing in speed as well.

The new hardware has prompted a deluge of new, sophisticated software for mobile phones that helps users take advantage of the new technological power of their phone and increasingly widespread access to the internet. Truly sophisticated internet applications are run best with 3G data plans, which are just appearing on phones that top the lines of American carriers. It will be a little while before full adoption of 3G is achieved on the majority of mobile phones.

Presently, there are four players in the phone OS market, the Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, and Palm OS. Symbian is a variant of Linux available on many Nokia, LG, and Sony Ericsson phones, and the functionality that it gives users is hard to find elsewhere. Oftentimes, however, it proves very difficult for the average user to interact with. Additionally, most Symbian phones are expensive and several must be purchased through the phone manufacturer and not through a carrier. Windows Mobile is spread out on a wide variety of phones on a multitude of carriers. It grants users a traditional experience and tight integration with both the desktop Windows and enterprise-level mail, calendar, etc. RIM’s Blackberry OS, limited to devices manufactured by the company, is in most widespread usage throughout the enterprise level. With incredible tools for the business market, they’ve seen rapid adoption in that field. Palm, who used to be the market’s heavyweight, has now been reduced to a small player.

Source:Rev2

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