Perspectives of Wireless Marketing Wars - Who will Be the Winner?
According to the investigate held by analytics business Canalys the shop of "smart" mobile devices in Europe, Near East and Africa grows more rapidly than shop of mobile phones. Within the first half of 2005 9.6 million of smartphones and Pdas were sold compared to 3.6 million during the same period of the previous year. Such trend is observed worldwide - approximately 70 million full feature handsets are sold worldwide. Agreeing to analysts the two main processes in expand stipulate such growth at the moment. On the one hand, ordinary users interchange their old smartphones and Pdas to newer ones. On the other hand, there is an upsurge in interest in mobile E-mail and extended abilities of smart mobile devices from clubs and corporations.
Modern smart mobile systems are to be: all the time available (small sized / handy), all the time On (optimized memory usage, minimal battery use), extensible (new software can be added if necessary), affordable, and of varied form factors. Moreover, a smart mobile device should join the maximum of mobile technologies available at the moment: Gps, VoIp, Bluetooth, IrDa, Gprs/Edge, Wi-Fi, mobile E-mail, withhold of Http protocol, Mp3 etc. This is a vast domain for competition among manufacturers of execution systems for smartphones and Pdas.
There are some very large players in this market: Symbian Os, Brew Os, Blackberry Os, Windows mobile Os and Palm Os etc.
Experts' Area
Ulf Morys, general owner at Gameloft GmbH:
- Symbian: more important in the future, but still niche shop (Nokia shop share ca. 33 % overall; not more than 1/3 of this Symbian phones & some other Symbian phones). whole optimistic estimate: ca. 10 % of total newly sold phone base.
- BlackBerry: piquant for business / productivity applications; no mass market.
- WindowsCe: difficult to judge. Microsoft will keep pushing it's platform, but results were often unsatisfactory in the past; make sure that the partners can indubitably bill for applications delivered to this platform. We've seen problems with this.
- Brew: real mass shop inherent in Us and Chinese market, not very relevant for European market."
Symbian
Symbian - is a software licensing business that develops and supplies the advanced, open, standard operating principles - Symbian Os - for data-enabled mobile phones and Pdas.
As of September 2005 60 phones that run under Symbian Os from eight manufacturers are shipped worldwide and a further 56 phones from eleven manufacturers (among them Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, BenQ and Motorola) were in development. Symbian Os is an undisputed sales leader in Europe and has a strong shop share in other countries. Currently Symbian's shop share is 55.9 per cent from worldwide sales (according to Idc analytics company), at that 82 per cent of devices were artificial by Nokia (in whole since 2005 starting there were sold approximately 34 million data enabled devices with Symbian Os on board).
Experts' Area
Philip Solis, Abi investigate senior analyst, author of the study "Smartphones: The shop for Smartphones and Smartphone Operating Systems":
"Symbian's chief advantages are that it is easy to build applications for, and that it has a large developer community. Disadvantages are that Symbian is primarily dinky to Nokia handsets, and its shop is concentrated in "Gsm-heavy" regions."
19 of 60 devices with Symbian Os withhold Wcdma. By the way, smartphone Nokia 6680 is recognized a 3G world bestseller telephone.
Key features of Symbian Os
Rich suite of application engines - the suite includes engines for contacts, schedule, messaging, browsing, utility and principles control; Obex for exchanging objects such as appointments (using vCalendar) and business cards (vCard); integrated Apis for data management, text, clipboard and graphics
Browsing - supports Wap 1.2.1 for mobile browsing
Messaging - multimedia messaging (Mms), enhanced messaging (Ems) and Sms; internet mail using Pop3, Imap4, Smtp and Mhtml; attachments; fax
Multimedia - audio and video withhold for recording, playback and streaming; image conversion
Graphics - direct passage to screen and keyboard for high performance; graphics accelerator Api
Communications protocols - wide-area networking stacks together with Tcp/Ip (dual mode Ipv4/v6) and Wap, personal area networking withhold include infrared (IrDa), Bluetooth® wireless technology and Usb; withhold is also in case,granted for multihoming capabilities and link layer
Quality-of-Service (QoS) on Gprs/Umts networks
Mobile telephony - Symbian Os is ready for the 3G shop with withhold for Gsm circuit switched voice and data (Csd and Edge Ecsd) and packet-based data (Gprs and Edge Egprs); Cdma circuit switched voice, data and packet-based data (Is-95, cdma2000 1x, and Wcdma); Sim, Ruim and Uicc Toolkit; other standards can be implemented by licensees straight through extensible Apis of the telephony subsystem
International withhold - conforms to Unicode standard version 3.0
Data synchronization - over-the-air (Ota) synchronization withhold using SyncMl; Pc-based synchronization over serial, Bluetooth® wireless technology, Infrared and Usb; a Pc Connectivity framework providing the capability to change files and synchronize Pim data
Security - full encryption and certificate management, derive protocols (Https, Wtls and Ssl and Tls), Wim framework and certificate-based application installation
Developing for Symbian Os - article development options include: C++, Java
(J2Me) Midp 2.0 and PersonalJava 1.1.1a (with JavaPhone 1.0 option), and Wap; tools are available for building C++ and Java applications and Roms with withhold for on-target debugging
User Inputs - generic input mechanism supporting full keyboard, 0-9*# (numeric mobile phone keypad), voice, handwriting recognition and predictive text input.
Brew
Brew - Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless is a blend Os, application platform, and marketing system. Brew started with Qualcomm-based Cdma chipsets and technology - a vast shop - but Brew is independent of the wireless technology utilized by a single handset or network and can withhold other wireless technologies. Ideally, Brew can work with any device, and Qualcomm is planning to port it to Global principles for mobile Communications (Gsm). Qualcomm is trying to remove the gap between Gsm and Cdma operators. As Cdma strengthened hand, the Gsm lobby propped its own version of Cdma which they named Wcdma (Wideband Cdma). Wcdma has been launched in a group of countries (80 operators in 29 countries), and many more are gearing to get underway it within this year, it is already successfully running in countries like Korea, Japan, China, India, Brazil and in some parts of North America.
So far prevalent in the Cdma domain, Brew is gently transiting to the Gsm bastion of Europe as the continent's operators introduce 3G services based on Wcdma (by the end of year 2005 the estimate of Wcdma networks users worldwide increased by 2,6 times compared to December 31, 2004 and reached 43,81 million users). Such a scenario could make Qualcomm a worldwide flag carrier in mobile market. In all, 40 industrial Brew device manufacturers (Audiovox, Kyocera, Lg, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, BenQ etc.) offer over 135 Brew-enabled devices - as of January, 2006 Agreeing to Qualcomm. approximately 10% of all handsets shipped worldwide are Brew compatible and the estimate of application downloads (May 2005) exceeds 300 million. The success of Brew has been built on Cdma platforms of major mobile operators, together with Verizon Wireless, China Unicom, Telstra and Kddi.
Regardless of platform, Brew requires dinky memory (150Kb), which makes Brew applications workable even on low-end phones.
Brew provides basic capabilities for such industrialized services as Gps, VoIp, Bluetooth 1.1, Mp3 and Midi support, video recording and playback, multimedia streaming, e-mail. The set of Brew services includes transportation capabilities of Tcp/Udp sockets, Http protocol support, Sms-Mms services, extended telephony capabilities. Brew supports some programming languages together with Java, and via extensions Brew understands C/C++, interactive animation Flash and Xml.
The Wall street Journal paralleled Brew with Microsoft Windows in wireless transportation domain.
Experts' Area
Victoria Alexandrova, project Manager, Pda applications group of Qarea Company: "Who I see a winner? Symbian, of course. It is convenient, applicable, multi functional and easy for understanding. However, if I were in the Usa I certainly would rather use BlackBerry, since they furnish top capability service."
Blackberry
Blackberry - is a possession operating system, in case,granted by Rim (Research in Motion, Canada), for the BlackBerry devices and BlackBerry enabled devices (BlackBerry email is already on a few handsets together with Siemens Sk65, Nokia 6820/6822, Motorola Mpx220). BlackBerry is one of the important wireless solutions, which allows users to stay linked with wireless passage to email, corporate data, phone, web and organizer features. The true power of BlackBerry is mailbox integration. BlackBerry can join seamlessly with a user's existing corporate or personal email list providing a wireless extension of their regular e-mailbox.
The first BlackBerry was released in early 1999. The first BlackBerry with integrated cell phone, as well as the first BlackBerry sold covering of North America was released in 2001, using the European Gsm/Gprs standard. Rim at the moment has a very dominant position in the mobile email market. BlackBerry is used worldwide, available from 95 wireless carriers in 40 countries. In November 2004, Rim announced the estimate of subscribers to the BlackBerry assistance to have reached two million, having doubled within ten months. Proceeding their steady growth, Rim announced an further one million subscribers in May 2005, only six months after having reached two million.
Experts' Area
Rudy de Waele, Ceo at Random One (R1):
"The shop is going more Symbian due to the strategic moves Symbian did with S60 platform, delivering Symbian to varied devices of different brand manufacturers and Nokia's most recent partnership with Vodafone to growth the use of S60 as a standard software platform.
Windows mobile is going to catch up bit by bit, they have the shop advantage in Us and they can advantage from the Microsoft Pc/Mobile synchronization that becomes more and more popular and is a crucial element for the success of mobile data services, but I don't see them getting speedily at the same level of Symbian on a global level, it's going to take at least 4-5 years for them to catch-up, if ever they will...
Meanwhile I don't see a piquant hereafter for Palm Os, neither Brew, though Brew is still quite strong in the shop due to Qualcomm drive on the market.
Nobody can compete with Symbian as of now, their competitors will have to come up with a stronger Os and that doesn't look obvious.
At last, don't forget about Linux who has a lot of potential, specifically in mobile, I see a piquant and growing hereafter for them."
No wonder, Rim commerce a top notch device (with BlackBerry Os on board) that is secure, stable, and dominates shop share with state and local government, the military, and with industrial corporations. In 2005 Rim was the first largest Pda supplier, and their technology BlackBerry occupied the second place among Os manufacturers giving Microsoft product the go-by.
Rim develops its own software for its devices, using C++ and Java technology. Third party developers applications must be digitally signed, that guarantees the application authorship.
Available services are: Wireless Email Service, Wireless Calendar Service, Wireless Internet (Html and Wap formats) Services, Voice and Sms, mobile Data Service, Attachment Service, Instant Messenger, Gps Service, Bluetooth etc.
Diagram Year-on-year increment of devices shipments
Note Brew includes Cdma and Wcdma chipsets
The full feature handsets shop is hard to predict, however approximately all analysts predict steady and expanding growth of this shop (which is observed at the moment). Each manufacturer aspires to create a base Os to globalize and standardize application development, distribution and administration (as they say) to form applications for all but not for each inescapable device. Some habitancy welcome such chance and some are bothered by inherent monopolization and subsequent abuses in this domain. What is observed at the moment that each of the manufacturers had occupied a inescapable characteristic niche, where he is successful, and already from there with mixed success tries to "conquer" the mobile wireless world.
Experts' Area
Alexei Golovashov, Senior Qa Engineer, Qarea Group:
"BlackBerry? One of its main advantages is an industrialized ergonomics both of the device itself and its software. The user interface, as of today, I suppose, is one of the best among industrialized for Pda devices. While its main disadvantage is absence of memory card. Absence of the latter means that it can not be used for other purposes, it is narrow directed. I use my Symbian as Mp3 player and to watch movies. I will not be able to use BlackBerry for that even if I want to. BlackBerry is favorable only for business domain, I guess, while Symbian also can be used as a game platform, and its a rather needful part of users who use it that way. Brew, from my point of view, has no piquant hereafter at all. J2Me is that well-developed that nobody pays attentiveness to Brew. Furthermore, all Brew applications are to be certified, that complicates their usage and distribution," - says Alexei Golovashov, Qarea's Senior Qa Engineer.
What then
The whole world, and wireless shop in particular, moves toward high speeds, multiple functions and extended business possibilities. 3G networks is the next inescapable stage of mobile shop development. It provides abundance of capabilities both for business and entertainment, transportation and data transfer, Internet passage and mobile e-mailing. Most of 3G devices should join all available 3G technologies to be competitive. This factor will also affect the development of devices and operating systems for them. As we can see, the mobile shop requires a device that could fullest relate the capabilities of next generation mobile networks 3G and 4G. These numbers are dramatic confirmation of 3G important position: 173 industrial 3G Operators in 75 Countries worldwide (as of February 02, 2006), over 228 million reported 3G Cdma subscribers (as of November 30, 2005), 826 models of 3G devices worldwide. The commerce standard for 3G wireless networks consists of 5 operating modes - three of them are based on Cdma technology: Cdma2000, Wcdma (Umts) and Td-Scdma. In this light Brew Os has a great chance to become a leader, though Nokia 6680 under Symbian Os is a 3G world bestseller telephone. The services by 3G carriers are quite actual already - 80% of British mobile users are ready to pay for mobile Tv service, nothing to say about Gps, high-speed packet data passage and high capability voice services.
Still large companies, financial giants, transnational corporations and government institutions bind to the tried technologies - they use BlackBerry - undisputed leader in business mobile solutions for mobile professionals and seek no alternative for it. However, if You still want an alternative for You BlackBerry You should be set for paying a pretty penny of some 0 for a new device and a new association and it is not easy at all to find an equal substitution.
And let us don't forget that more players like Windows mobile Os and Linux Os are on their way and hit their stride.
Table yearly global sales gain and shop share of each Os
Note Brew Os is not included in the table
Os vendor 2004 % share 2005 % share
Symbian 14,365,850 61.2% 34,000,000 53,27
Linux 6,380,160 27.2% 9,300,000 14,57
Palm Source 1,210,090 5.2% 2,200,000 3,45
Microsoft 1,119,610 4.8% 14,000,000 21,94
Rim 135,180 0.6% 4,000,000 6,27
Others 277,520 1.2% 322,000 0,5
Total 23,488,410 63,822,000
Undoubtedly, there's still a long way to go: Symbian powered nearly 34 million devices last year, more than duplicate what Microsoft was able to ship, but the gap is narrowing.
Microsoft is making ready their new mobile operating principles Crossbow which is to replace Windows mobile 5.0 launched in May 2005. Crossbow will have both Push Email and built in Internet Pager, thus Crossbow will provoke competition to BlackBerry Os. Microsoft aspires to get over Symbian and Bb at a time and we know how this ordinarily results. New product will take time to be tested to make sure it runs smoothly in operator's networks. After all, will operators agree to update their software and servers for new applications to run properly?
Ms in case,granted an enough tool set for the developers to form software for their platform. In many ways they are helping to open up software innovation on devices. While developers for Symbian Os quite often complain of its being bad documented and too many Os versions. Microsoft's long heritage includes an insight of the Developer and providing Developers tools. Symbian is a newcomer. Still, we shouldn't forget about the power of open source: Why would a Developer want to restrict themselves into a platform with a possession software code? Some experts think that just the developer withhold is going to be key in who wins in the consumer shop place.
Much also depends on marketing and promotion: Symbian's operating principles is used in many top-end business phones today, because of its withhold for features such as Pim, voice-conferencing, push email and Web access. Nokia phone stands for world recognized brand and image phone - and it does pay dividends. To have Nokia's smartphone is approximately the same as to drive Mercedes.
The inherent of growing markets should also be considered: the examine for mobile phones in India, China, Eastern Europe and Africa is not a new phenomenon. Just in time enter a growing shop and you can lead the race (Industry analysts forecast that 80% of the next billion mobile phone customers will come from emerging markets).
This is a niche market, all around. We say Europe - we mean Symbian, we say Usa - we mean Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Brew. Brew - is dinky to Cdma markets (Us and Chinese markets), Blackberry - is closely tied to business and corporate clients, Symbian is prevailing mainly in Europe: it turns out they have nothing to "brew". I hope none of them comes to dominate, since that is a recipe for stagnation; the 3 equally balanced would be excellent for fair competition and product development. We can not furnish enough predictions for someone's success or failure. It will be just a forecast.
All is left is to guess who to place stake on ...
http://www.qarea.com
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