Until a few years ago, the smartphone market consisted of just a handful of players such as Microsoft, Nokia and Palm, with Nokia’s Symbian OS accounting for a majority of the market share. However, today the game has changed with Nokia fighting to regain its dominance.
Nokia cellphones rocketed to success in the 1990s and continued to dominate across the globe till the mid-2000s. All that changed when Apple's iPhone was introduced three years ago with an innovative touchscreen and iOS operating system which was miles ahead of Nokia’s Symbian OS. However, the real threat to Nokia isn't iPhone or the business-oriented Blackberry – the two most popular smartphones in the market. The real culprit behind Nokia's shrinking market share is Google’s Android OS launched just a couple of years ago. Android marked the penetration of open source culture in the smartphone market. It offered mobile manufacturers a low-cost operating system that was at par with Apple’s iOS. As a result of this, large companies such as LG and Samsung flocked to Google's system, drilling a hole in Nokia's dominance. Today, not only is Android eating into Nokia’s share market but is also disturbing the position of the likes of Apple iOS and RIM’s Blackberry.
However, all does not seem rosy for Android as Nokia has vowed to fight back with its new Symbian 3 OS and Maemo OS – both of which have been released by the company on a limited set of handsets. It will be interesting to see how both the operating systems are accepted by the market in the upcoming months. Apple, on the other hand, is building upon its proprietary system, which has been refined and tuned to be more user-friendly over the years. Another factor that could work in favour of Apple is the strong repository and tremendous support it receives from third-party application developers across the globe. Meanwhile, Samsung has also jumped on the smartphone bandwagon with its new Bada OS. The system is relatively new and has received positive as well as negative feedback. Another new OS expected is Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, successor to Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform – currently under development and scheduled to be released later this year.
It is evident that over a period of time, the smartphone market will become increasingly saturated and competitive. We envisage that the Android OS will ascertain its dominance in the future due to its open source nature and affordable price. However, technology in today’s age is changing at a rapid pace and it will be interesting to watch who holds out and rules in the next decade.
Will it be the open source based Google Android who will continue its reign or will new OS’s from Nokia, Samsung or Microsoft snatch the crown from Google? Let us know your views by voting on our blog.
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