Calling the death of Windows Mobile
Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO of open-source mobile leader Funambol, has more or less declared that Windows Mobile is dying. Indeed, it's arguably the case that the proprietary software model, generally, is largely dead in mobile.
Why is mobile computing shifting to open source? Because the mobile world has learned from the desktop wars with Microsoft, Capobianco argues:
(Hardware) vendors have seen what happened to them in the PC world. Totally marginalized. They won't let Microsoft or anyone else do it in mobile as well. They are much smarter now. They know they have to control their destiny and differentiate on the (operating system) as well. They know the answer is open source.
While it is true that Apple and Research In Motion seem to be doing quite well with their end-to-end, proprietary-everything models, those two companies represent a small slice of the overall market for embedded software on mobile devices.
From mobile phones to Wi-Fi routers, open source increasingly dominates because, ironically, it doesn't dominate. Open source cedes control of the software to the hardware vendors, a fact they appreciate and embrace.
So although I expect to see Apple and its kind thrive by resolving complexity for consumers, I also suspect that we'll see rapid uptake in open source by hardware manufacturers desperate to distinguish themselves from the pack.
The easiest way to do that? With software. The easiest software to modify and customize? Yep, it's open source.
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Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Go to any Windows Mobile device and compare it against any other. Not much difference other than physical size and price.... Can a handset manufacturer really afford to cede control of their user interaction model to something that they can't or aren't allowed to change? I'd say that this has more to do with the decisions to move away than the strength of open source.
Oh, and one note regarding open source in hardware devices, there is quite a bit of concern among hardware vendors about the changes to the GPL license in V3 to prevent the "Tivoization" of the open source code. (which the GPL3 specific ally addressed) The rabid anti-DRM, everything should be free bent of the open source movement may very well kill its use in numerous consumer devices as a device manufacturer wants to protect their differentiation, which is severly restricted by GPL3. Want an example: Echostar switched to open source in their DishPVR 721 satellite IRD. That project, launched with a significant amount of fanfare, has since been replaced with systems based on proprietary software. Don't know if GPL3 had anything to do with it, but given that they had invested a serious amount of effort to built the platform only to abandon it for something else, there had to be some reason to move away.
(Believe me, we looked at it in one of my past companies and made the decision that we would not risk our IP and differentiation by using open source)
Furthermore, few projects use GPLv3, and many of those that don't now, never will.
GPLv3 is one of about 50 open source licenses.
First, there's nothing rabid about being anti-DRM. It does nothing to stop piracy and it's hostile to the paying customer (you know, the people who pay your wages?). No two ways about it.
If you don't like the license, don't use the code. If someone releases their code under a license you don't like, tough. It's their code, not yours.
seriously, its about the licensing cost not your precious opensores...
nice headline tho...
Cell phone makers would like to avoid that fate.
open source in and of itself isn't the answer. Being able to control your future can be done by either using an open source OS, or developing your own OS.
Open source is leading the way, but people want money for their ideas which is why iPhone apps are big business.
Quite apart from anything else though, smartphones are the most expensive and that's what you get WM on the most (especially the little touchscreeny ones with the slideout keyboards) and, we are in a recession (it's all official and everything, good thing the TV told me because with the state of things I just couldn't tell).
The iPhone will probably still do quite well because it's relatively new and its potential market skrinkage has yet to meet the definite market that haven't bought one yet (well paid, secure jobs, very image conscious) but on my last contract upgrade the latest Windows Mobile offerings would have cost me between £150 and £300 (or thereabouts) while I could get a phone worth around £160-£180 for free. OK, so I'm on a cheap contract but you can guess what I chose in the end.
I think that, being purely a business tool (and they all look like oversized PDAs) people will be holding off until they can more afford it.
Whether thet iPhone-like 'cool' factor of the Palm Pre will work out or whether they'll have to ride out the rough market when it launches is not something I'm even going to guess at but I'm pretty sure they'd have been better launching it last year. I guess a product can only be ready when it's ready.
One thing I do know though, one reason Linux and open source works so well in the phone market is the same reason OS X works so well on the Mac. Control of the platform. There are no issues with hardware being 'too new', anything being plugged in being incompatible. The system is designed and suited specifically to that hardware and the only thing that's going to be plugged into a phone is a micro/mini SDHC card and a limited set of bluetooth connection types (what, headset, headphones and OBEX? Maybe a keyboard). Applications will be written specifically for that phone as they will be for other phones (and application and games makers are already used to heavy fragmentation) so there's no support issues there.
With all that, there's a lot of the work done for them and they can adapt to suit, overlay their own interface, write their own drivers for custom hardware (as they've always done) and concentrate on differentiating their phone on the important things like usability, battery life, signal, etc. After all, these people are makers of phones, not operating systems (although they might have made one as a byproduct).
It's easy to imagine the more expensive smartphones, but can you imagine the broad market appeal for a <$50 Android phone?
Yes the iphone is a good ipod, and palm is a good pda, the blackberries are good at email, and the rest are nice phones, but the Windows Mobile is a computer first and so can be made to do anything. And it even makes a good phone.
- by Sumatra-Bosch February 2, 2009 7:03 AM PST
- Maybe WinM is caving because it is an execrable OS.
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