From Software Business Community

Future of mobile platforms

It is widely agreed that the mobile device is emerging as a major computing platform. It has limitations due to battery life, screen size, and input, but also major strengths in mobility and supporting a variety of location-specific services. Networked applications are a strong supplement to, or replacement for, the traditional voice medium of the mobile phone.

Relevance to software business

Mobile computing will create a major new market for the software industry, and will probably stimulate the next major category of software applications. However, mobile computing also suffers from major fragmentation in the infrastructure/platform space, and will doubtless require some consolidation before the application market can really take off. Application software vendors who choose the right platform(s) will be at a competitive advantage.

There are two possibilities:

• An existing mobile computing platforms (e.g. Symbian, Microsoft Windows Mobile, etc.)
• An new emerging platform (e.g. Apple iPhone or Google Android).

The purpose of this article is to consider and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various platforms, and based on this make the argument in favor of each of the major contenders.

Another important question that will be addressed is how many separate platforms the industry can reasonably support, how many would be desirable, or whether middle-layer software can allow easy portability of applications and platforms and applications to evolve relatively independently.

The contenders

There are several possibilities:

• The laptop computer (Windows and Mac) are offering smaller form factors while maintaining compatibility with the desktop ecosystem.
• An existing smartphone platforms (e.g. Symbian, Microsoft Windows Mobile, etc.)
• A new emerging platform (e.g. Apple iPhone or Google Android).

The strengths and weaknesses of the contenders will now be discussed, from the oldest and most mature thru the recent entrants.

Laptop computers

Symbian

Symbian ltd. are the creators and licensors of Symbian OS, the world's leading mobile [operating system]. Most of the Nokia mobile phones are powered by Symbian OS. According to Canalys ^[1] ,by OS provider, Symbian leads on 67% share, followed by Microsoft on 13%, with RIM on 10%. Symbian has its roots in EPOC, an operating system developed for computing devices with very limited hardware capabilities.

Symbian is a core operating system, and provides only limited UI and middleware features. Therefore Symbian is always accompanied by a UI/middleware layer. The most popular of these is currently Nokia's Series 60, which has been licensed to other manufacturer's as well. Sony Ericsson uses the UIQ platform broadly, and NTT Docomo uses MOAP. Native software is not compatible between the different UI/middleware layers.

Symbian had been constantly reducing its licensing fee, and of June 24 2008, plans were announced to fully open source it through the new Symbian Foundation [1]. Plans are also in place to consolidate the different UI layers and release the result as open source as well. These have been claimed to be competitive moves against Google's Android mobile operating system.

Linux

The Linux operating system embedded in mobile computing devices such as Mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) is called Embedded Linux. The embedded Linux can be differentiated from desktop version of Linux in the fact that embedded Linux is designed for devices with comparably limited resources, such as smaller sizes of RAM, battery power and comparatively much more limited secondary storage. Embedded Linux systems combine the Linux kernel with a small set of free software utilities and has been ported to a variety of processors not suited for use as the processor of desktop or server computers. ^[2]

Windows Mobile

A mobile devices operating system developed by Microsoft. The Windows Mobile 6.1 is the latest version of this software. [2]

Blackberry

Developed by canadian based Research In Motion (RIM).

Java

iPhone

Like Windows Mobile, the iPhone uses a desktop operating system (Mac OS X) downsized and ported to the mobile platform. This approach allows some sharing of development costs across desktop and mobile device, and creates a more familiar environment for application developers.

The iPhone however, is unique in that it is proprietary to Apple Computer's hardware. This makes it difficult for the platform to reach a diversity of users with different needs and price sensitivity, reduces the competition in driving down hardware costs, and will impact innovation on the hardware side.

Android

One of the recent initiatives in the field of mobile devices, the goal of which is to provide a completely open and free mobile platform and is known as Android - Open Handset Alliance project and consists of a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies. The Android platform is a software stack for mobile devices including an operating system, middleware and key applications. Android relies on Linux version 2.6 for core system services such as security, memory management, process management, network stack, and driver model.

Developers can create applications for the platform using the Android SDK. Applications are written using the Java programming language and run on Dalvik, a custom virtual machine designed for embedded use which runs on top of a Linux kernel. The kernel also acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and the rest of the software stack. This alliance includes companies like T-Mobile, Motorola, Sprint Nextel, China Mobile, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, Telecom Italia, eBay, HTC, Samsung, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, TI and Wind River to name a few.[3]

Factors for success

What factors are most important as a determinant of future success for a mobile platform?

Features and functionality

For a new platform to succeed (or even for the existing ones), having a rich set of features and easy to use functionalities for the end user to use is an important parameter for the success of that platform

Performance

Attracting application developers

Corporate backing

Predictions of success

Based on their characteristics as well as the factors for success, what chances can we give the various platforms to blossom and gain mindshare and marketshare in the future?

Laptop computers

Symbian

Linux

Linux promises to be a major player in the embedded operating system landscape. The power, reliability, flexibility, and scalability of Linux, combined with its support for a large range of microprocessor architectures, hardware devices, graphics support, and communications protocols have established Linux as an increasingly popular software platform for a vast array of projects (like the community based alliance projects) and products.

Undoubtedly, Linux operating system has a bright future ahead in the area of embedded applications, spanning from Internet appliances to even dedicated control systems. Close to 90% of all newly manufactured microcomputer chips are used for embedded applications. Its open source nature and different distributions and variations of it, coupled with its supporting software components have evolved to meet the diverse needs of the markets and applications to which Linux is being adapted. There are small footprint versions and real-time enhanced versions available as well. Despite the origins of Linux as a PC architecture operating system, there are now ports to numerous non-x86 CPUs, with and without memory management units, including PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, 68K, and even micro controllers.

Linux is soon emerging as the platform of choice for many vendors of various sorts of equipment, major reason for which could be the royalty fee. Embedded systems are based on proprietary kernels and small micro controllers. Implementing and supporting applications and kernels of this degree of complexity with proprietary software incurs a high cost . Thus, the incentive to replace micro controllers with general purpose CPUs and in-house developed kernels with a standard operating system is growing rapidly.

Over a period of time as the industry matures, there would be perhaps less than a factor of 10 differences between a high-end desktop and a high-end embedded device running Linux in terms of both processing power and memory size. Probably more focus in an embedded Linux field could be in designing future services for communication in smart devices. Community based collaborations by various Linux vendors like LiMo foundation [4] or OpenMoko [5] etc to avoid from the market getting split is definitely a way forward to address the issue of vertical and horizontal market fragmentation. Also, more focus on the support services for the Linux based distributions would be very beneficial in the long run.

Windows Mobile

Blackberry

Java

iPhone

Android

Summary of the research literature

Opportunities for research

Links

• http://maemo.org/
• http://www.lipsforum.org/
• http://www.symbian.com/index.html
• Official site of Windows Mobile
• Google Android

References

1. ↑ http://www.canalys.com/pr/2008/r2008021.htm
2. ↑ YOSHIMOTO, A., MAEDA, K., & FUKUNAGA, M. (2004). The adoption of linux for cellular phones. IEIC Technical Report (Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers), 103(681), 103-108.