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Linux Headed For Smartphone Domination?
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."
SCO files suit today against Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, Cingular, Nextel, Audiovox, Handspring, Hitachi, Kyocera, LG, Motorola, NEC, Neonode, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, VTech...
Asked for a comment, SCO was quoted as saying "There's gotta be some blood in one of these stones."
So with this phone, I get to grep for the girl's number I got last night, with Windows I get to grope the girl I met last night. Which one wins?
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
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.
Thanks! After drooling over his friend's smart phone that runs the 'evil' mircrosoft my husband now has an excuse to have a lovely linux smartphone top of his (insert occasion here) present list. Like he needed an excuse to bend my ears about how great Linux is!
It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
I happen to know some very skilled embedded systems developers, and at least one (also a Linux kernel maintainer) recently lost a possible contract with a very large multinational company because Linux turned out to be too large for the environment they wanted to run it in.
Hopefully VSTa or a like open operating system better suited to very small environments (eCos? dunno) will become practical and popular for such usage. Linux is reasonable in larger embedded systems -- networking hardware and the like -- but its suitability becomes less and less as space constraints constrict (think 100K of RAM or less). Remember, it's not just the cost of the OS that's an issue -- the cost of the extra hardware to run it, and the loss of battery life, is also a dealbreaker.
So no, I'm not convinced by this report; the summary makes it look too much like something concocted by talking to managers with insufficient engineering input.
Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold
Symbian owned two-thirds of the market, Microsoft - 14%, Palm - 13%
HP is becoming the biggest name in the industry with 33% market share globally, but Nokia has 78% in Europe, Middle East and Asia.
Surely there's a chance that LinuxDevices has a bit of an interest in this?
:^) LinuxDevices didn't do the study or release the report. They just wrote about it, just like Wired or CNN or Slashdot would...
Looks like you didn't read carefully
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".
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.