The recent raft of announcements made by the LiMo Foundation and the
Open Handset Alliance indicate that incumbent smartphone OS software
vendors will soon face a serious challenge, deriving from two
technically competent and coalesced Linux consortia. The LiMo foundation
announcement of support from another major carrier in the form of
Verizon, as well as the growing support for Android in the form of
numerous global application developers coding innovative applications
for the platform, categorically proves these are not a flash in the pan
as many incumbents would have you believe.
ABI Research vice president and research director Stuart Carlaw states, "By
2013, we expect that Linux will take 23% of the smartphone market and
will be the second most prevalent solution behind Symbian. And although
LiMo and Android will take the lion's share of
the market for Linux solutions, there will be opportunities for
solutions such as Maemo which will be facilitated by the encroachment of
the MID (Mobile Internet Device) form factor into the mobile devices
landscape."
In a recent report, ABI Research found that Nokia's
poor position in the Americas resulted in a 2007 share of only 4% for
Symbian in the American smartphone market. It is imperative that Symbian
looks to grow its share of the North American market by gaining more
traction from other handset vendors that are performing well there.
Otherwise, the company could face a situation whereby its leadership in
the European markets is challenged by a combination of a resurgent
Windows and emerging Linux, while simultaneously being locked out of the
North American market.
Smartphone
and OS Markets (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/market_research/Smartphones)
provides a thorough overview of the smartphone market, concentrating on
key developments in both device feature set expansion and the evolving
software landscape. The report covers important topics including
specific features and technologies that enhance the user interface, in
addition to the encroachment of open source software into the smartphone
domain.
It forms part of the firm's Mobile
Devices Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/
Mobile_Devices_Research_Service),
which contains other Research Reports, Research Briefs, Market Data, an
Online Database, ABI Insights, ABI Vendor Matrices, and analyst inquiry
support.