Even although Nokia outrightly denied that they would abandon Symbian for Android, it certainly got people’s attention. And for good reasons.
Over the history of computing, there has never been a market that was dominated by 5 major players over an extended period of time. Do we have 5 major client operating systems today? No. Enterprise OS’es? No. 5 major databases? No. 5 major browsers? No again. With the users and the developers being the kingmakers, markets always have and continue to consolidate.
So why would we have 5 major smartphone platforms? We won’t. That is why I took the strong stance that the Palm Pre will fail. Of the 5 majors in the smartphone market, two seem to be relatively safe: Apple and RIM, maker of the Blackberry, since they target slightly different subsets of the smartphone market. Of the remaining three, Android will make it, since it is not only going to be in smartphones, but also in MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices, such as tablets, netbooks,…) Besides, Google must win in Mobile and Android is their platform to do so. Which leaves us with Symbian, which is going the open source route, but has not seen that much pickup from developers, and Microsoft, whom I cannot see walking away from this market.
Personally, I doubt that Nokia will go the Android route or that Microsoft is going to take over RIM, but that is not what matters. What matters is that the shakeout is starting and not everyone will be standing when this is over. Until then, be prepared to hear rumors, announcements, speculations and analyses. And you might just get surprised at what the outcome turns out to be.
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