Sixty-seven percent of 2009's venture-backed mobile-application start-ups are developing their app to work on multiple platforms--namely, the top six mobile operating systems: iPhone, Palm, RIM, Android, Symbian, and Windows, according to new data from research firm Chubby Brain, 67.
Of the 33 percent that are developing platform-specific applications, development for the iPhone dominates all other platforms with slightly less than half of the investment dollars. This makes sense for a number of reasons, primarily the fact that the App Store is the easiest and clearest path to monetizing said applications.
What's interesting about this data is that developers are actively supporting six different platforms for different reasons. For example, you need to support Symbian to reach a broad group of users, and you need to support Android to try to reach what could be the next big swath of mobile devices. But managing development efforts for all of those platforms will eventually become a major headache.
I suspect that we'll see a further shift to devices supporting Apple's iPhone, Research In Motion's BlackBerry, and Google's Android operating systems over time, as smartphone functionality becomes more important on a global scale.
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Android)
Despite an overwhelming wealth of confidence from Google's Android team, smartphones and other devices running the open-source operating system remain few and far between. As Crave's Kent German wrote earlier this week, 2009 was supposed to be the "year of Android" and five months into the year, not a single new Android device has landed in the United States.
But it looks like Panasonic is getting closer to taking the plunge into non-Japanese markets as the company launches the HT-03a, its first Android-based device for NTT Docomo this summer in Japan.
Speaking at a press conference in Japan, Keisuke Ishii, board member and director of the Mobile Terminal Business Unit at Panasonic Mobile Communications, said the company is "seriously considering developing an Android-based handset and entering overseas mobile phone markets in fiscal 2010."
"The global market for smartphones based on open-source platforms including Android will reach 100 million units in three years," Ishii said. "We are discussing specific measures to succeed in such a large market."
It is good to see big vendors like Panasonic embrace open source, but I wonder how much, if anything they'll give back to the Android development community. I also wonder what changes are taking place in Android that will make it so much easier for companies to bring new products to market much faster. A hundred million is a big number and Android hasn't yet proven its mettle.
Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom
I had some time to kill yesterday down in Palo Alto so I went to the Apple store and played with the iPhone (it's still great, despite being AT&T only) and then to the AT&T store to check out the Blackberry Bold (nice new UI but a little big) then to T-mobile to look at the Android again (it really needs some work.)
In my mobile phone travels I took a look at several phones running Windows Mobile, an operating system I have discussed in the past. I still struggle to see why Microsoft hasn't fixed the user experience and the odd quirks if they want to be truly competitive.
Microsoft is losing on mobile phones to Apple and Google and doesn't even come close to usurping Symbian's place. And as BusinessWeek points out "To keep up, it needs touch displays, mobile cloud computing, and its own app store." True, but it's hard to see how these additional features will address the basic problem that the operating system is underwhelming and occasionally downright terrible.
Microsoft has the assets to make a mobile vision reality, but it's hard to say what that vision consists of. The App Store has been the killer app for the iPhone, and Android has gotten a huge boost as part of the Google-verse. Microsoft could easily start to sway developers by connecting Windows Mobile with its Live services and development platforms.
In the meantime, Apple's iPhone will continue to undermine every other device maker and operating system thanks to it's simplicity and features. It's not a great phone, it is however a great mobile device.
This is not to say that building an OS for a phone is easy. Companies like Panasonic and Motorola have dumped tens of millions of dollars into mobile Linux with not a huge amount to show for it. Microsoft may be on the right track but Windows Mobile is off enough that most of the innovation goes unnoticed due the basic flaws.
Anecdotally, I have a friend who works for a company that requires their staff to use Windows Mobile and every time he calls me the phone reboots. It must have something to do with my open source voodoo.
Note: I use a Blackberry on Verizon Wireless.
Despite concerns that people would forgo dietary staples like bread and milk before giving up their mobile phones, we can definitely expect to see companies and consumers cutting mobile expenses as they look for ways to reduce overall budgets and spending.
The slowing economy has yet to be felt by Apple, with the company announcing that it sold 6.9 million iPhones this quarter (compared with 1.1 million in the third quarter of 2007). With Apple as a clear leader in mobile innovation, will other mobile vendors be able to keep up as budgets are tightened?
Open-source mobile e-mail and platform provider Funambol, issued a paper yesterday outlining eight reasons why open-source push e-mail and mobile sync will triumph in a downturn. Not surprisingly, Funambol predicts that mobile customers will want more value for less.
Why pay $30 a month for a BlackBerry push e-mail service if there's an equally good open-source alternative available for $10 a month? Even better for the tight pocketbook, Funambol recently launched a free version of its open-source mobile push e-mail service funded by mobile microbanner ads.
... Read moreMicrosoft plans to continue charging handset makers licensing fees for use of its Windows Mobile operating system, not responding to the free offerings of Google and Nokia, Reuters reports.
Microsoft charges $8 to $15 per phone, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, which sounds shockingly high for a mobile operating system that's less than stellar, especially when a handset maker could incorporate the decent (but not great) operating system from Google, Android, for free.
While there is no current economic reason for Microsoft to make Windows Mobile free, it seems like an odd choice when mobile competitors Research In Motion, Apple, Nokia, and now Google have a far better shot at attaining market ubiquity than Windows Mobile does.
As we've seen with Mac OS and Linux on the desktop, fighting a monopoly is very tough. Microsoft dropped Xbox prices to gain game console market share and saw huge growth. You could easily make the argument that mobile phones are a more important market. As such, it's surprising that the company wouldn't try to annex handsets the way it has desktops.
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