28 October 2005
ABI Research Calls the Pros and Cons of Smartphone Operating Systems
 What is a smartphone? At ABI Research, the concept hinges around the operating system, which defines much of what a smartphone is and does.
According to Philip Solis, senior analyst and author of a forthcoming study, "Smartphones: The Market for Smartphones and Smartphone Operating Systems", all the major operating systems have their pros and cons.
The market leader is still Symbian. It's easy to build applications for, says Solis, and has a large developer community - critical to any OS's success. If it has a "con", it's that Symbian is found mainly on Nokia handsets, and its market strength is largely in GSM-heavy markets.
Microsoft hopes to overtake Symbian with its Windows CE operating system and Windows Mobile middleware. Its "pro" is its enterprise focus. It interfaces well with Microsoft Exchange Server, so prevalent in business operations. However - the con - Microsoft likes to control as much as possible of its end-users' experience, and so do operators, who want to fully customize the user interface.
Then there's what some call the "wild card": Linux. In its favor, it's highly customizable, and inexpensive. But while it has been embraced by market leaders in Asia, it's still an unknown quantity elsewhere.
Last year ABI Research suggested that the Symbian OS would lose market share, and today, Solis confirms that forecast. "Symbian is still by far the market leader," he says "but more Windows Mobile phones are reaching the market. And we are bullish about the prospects for a rebranded Palm user interface running over Linux (alongside many other Linux OS solutions) taking some of Symbian's market share."
The new ABI Research study explores how smartphones, including wireless PDAs, perform at the high end of the cellular handset market. The smartphone's role, combining communications and computing as an extension of the PC, the Internet, and the corporate intranet, is discussed, along with carriers' strategies to attract and retain customers looking for these high-end devices.
About ABI Research
Founded in 1990 and headquartered in New York, ABI Research maintains global operations supporting annual research programs, intelligence services and market reports in automotive, wireless, semiconductors, broadband, and energy. For information call +1.516.624.2500
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