Mobiler | South Africa mobile phone news, galleries, reviews, apps: Windows Mobile loses nearly a third of market share

Windows Mobile loses nearly a third of market share
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mobiler on 16/11/2009 06:21:00
 
Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system lost 28% of its smartphone market
share between last year's third quarter and this year's third quarter, according
to Gartner.
Figures released last week by Gartner show that the mobile OS had 11% of the
global smartphone market in Q3 2008. A year later, it had 7.9%. But, the
iPhone's share rose from 12.9% to 17.1%, while Research In Motion's share jumped
from 16% to 20.8%.
Nokia’s Symbian's share fell from 49.7% to 44.6% over the same period - a 10%
decline. Recently-launched Android OS from Google had no market share last year,
but in Q3 2009 it had a 3.9% share.
"From one side, the market is going open source," Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza
said.
"We expect that, by 2012, around 62% of the whole smartphone market will be
open source with Symbian, Android and other Linux flavours. On the other side,
they have more closed environments like Apple and RIM. Microsoft is caught in
the middle. They have to think hard what they can do."
According to ZDNet UK, Cozza suggested that, given the strong emergence of
free, open-source operating systems, Microsoft may find it difficult to demand
licence fees from smartphone manufacturers. She described the recently
introduced Windows Mobile 6.5 as "not a major improvement" on its predecessors,
and said the OS's user interface was limited by its reliance on small icons that
need stylus, rather than finger, interaction.
"[Windows Mobile] remains well positioned within the enterprise," Cozza noted,
but she pointed out that 80% of smartphone sales are to consumers.
"All their licensees — HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson — are developing on
Android," Cozza said, adding that previous licensees Palm and Motorola have both
abandoned Windows Mobile.