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Linux Headed For Smartphone Domination?

Posted by simoniker on from the competition-is-none dept.

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices has published a summary of research findings from Zelos Group that predicts that Linux is going dominate the smartphone market, beating out both Symbian and Microsoft. Zelos says that Linux scored highest on the two criteria that matter most to OEMs and carriers: openness and low cost. Microsoft scored lowest in these criteria. The article says Zelos believes Symbian beats Microsoft due to the flexibility of its licensing terms, and Microsoft prospects will be stymied to an extent by its desire to strictly manage how its brand is used. The conclusion: Linux will be the preferred operating system for connected devices."

4 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Tech history 101 by rockclimber · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the best system does NOT alway win in the market.

    the domination of a market depends on marketing, lobbying, cash and quality of the product.
    so, linux has 1 out of 4. not bad, but still a long way to go

  2. Flexibility by xot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the flexibility that Linux provides to the manufacturers is the key factor in its being the OS of choice. Any OS that the hardware makers can use to their advantage to make the product more robust n fast will definitely be ahead in the race.Seriously doubt an Microsoft OS will give that kind of flexibility or 'openness'.

    --
    Lord of the Binges.
  3. Not anytime soon! by Atomic+Frog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Those guys at Zelos don't know the market then.

    - Openness is desirable, but guess what, Symbian is essentially "open" to the phone developers. Linux has no advantage there.
    - Low cost. Yes, developers want low cost, but here's where the Zelos guys miss the boat. Low cost means the TOTAL, OVERALL cost, including missing market opportunities from slower time-to-market.
    Ask LG and others why they licensed bits of their software from Nokia.

    What costs you is the time to develop the product, NOT per device licensing costs. This is NOT a personal computer market where the OS license cost can make up a large percentage of the cost.

    Symbian works, it's good enough, it's from a consortium of the mobile phone makers, so it's relatively open and has easy licensing costs. Add to that the base of existing developers, it's hard to see how Linux will crack the market unless some extra whizz-bang functionality is added on the phones that Symbian can't support.

    Plus, almost no user cares what OS their phone runs.

    I had a chat with one of the prod. development managers from Nokia. He doesn't like the Windows-based products for mobile phones, but it _isn't_ for the reasons the Linux zealots expect. It isn't cost, and he didn't even mention "closed-source".

  4. Re:I dunno.. by RoLi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Maybe I'm not as easily entertained as the average Slashdot moderator, but I really don't understand why the same old jokes get modded up to 4 or 5 "funny" for months or even years.

    2002: Post "In Soviet Russia" joke - +5 Funny guaranteed
    2003: Post "I for one welcome.." joke - +5 Funny guaranteed
    And now the SCO-699$ licensing jokes... in every thread even remotely related to Linux. Maybe even several times...

    -1 Redundant, please guys.