Windows Mobile, iPhone , Android & Symbion
What is the difference?
Computer operating system developers have turned into Mobile OS developers in the recent years, It was only Symbion till 2003-2004, which was getting shipped on most middle & high range mobile handsets, then came the Windows Mobile Operating system, which took new turn for mobile hardware manufacturers to think.
First it was a turn of Microsoft , a successful launch of Windows Mobile & their monopoly role has got saturated with their developments & they were making themselves very busy with the Windows XP & Vista operating system fixes & updates
Meanwhile, Steve jobs got busy into Mobile operating system i.e iPhone OS, Apple being a hardware & OS vendor, his turnout time of getting a fully functional Mobile OS iPhone OS was been a easy & their targets were just months away., Their successful launch & consequent volume figures has given big boost the Apple sales figures & a brand name in the Telecom market in span of an year, other side, it was big blow to the other mobile device manufacturers especially worldwide(Including Motorola, Nokia & Sony).
Meanwhile, search engine company Google jumped into the wagon with the assistance & initiatives from Open Handset Alliance, an alliance network formed by Mobile device manufacturers to find long term solution to their OS issues & avoid Monopoly play by the Microsoft Mobile.
Android is already into the scene, T1-Mobile UK already launched a HTC device with Android OS & selling it in the UK market, But is it a tip of an ice berg?.
Now looking at the three OS developers & the market picture, it looks all of them having a glitch with each one, iPhone finding it very complicated to form agreements & contracts with telecom operators to fix the product price, naturally having a desire attitude to get the handset cost subsidised by Telecom operators through user data contracts , which failed in few markets where telecom operators are not open enough to take Risk at all, but at Microsoft the glitch is different, having taken there pie with Windows Mobile operated mid range mobile devices in the world market, they have missed the bandwagon of touch screen techologies. I guess Microsoft is aiming something bigger than the touch screen market, possibly with KIOSKS & commerical Touch screen segment!!!
Having no knowledge with operating system, google being a search engine company, with help of java technology, google done an initiation with Mobile device manufacturers, but Google need to wait for another year to understand the telecom business model itself and then make formal tie ups with the Mobile device manufacturers, finally to understand the business model to distribute the OS & android applications, which was been easier for apple with the iTunes, Android is looking at web model to distribute applications, the success of Android will be a just another full year to see result!.
Microsoft never promoted Windows Mobile OS to the end users, it was only the Handset manufacturers took their responsiblity to sell the harware, possibly that could be the reason, Microsoft virtually missed the race on the mobile OS? may be Bill gates is the one who should answer my question.
For developers, the future of Mobile telecom market will throw lot of opportunities for thousands of small & tiny companies having manpower of between 2~10 people.( Like my company acedotx.com having 3 people working on Android SDK)
iPhone & Android SDK's already into small companies, As said earlier, the Apple store been a successful with their implementation methodology & applications selling model with iTunes help, the right applications focused to the target users will do good in sales volume for the Apple as well as developers, at the other end Android SDK is with more hands because of it's Open source model, but the question is big to answer about the implementation & store model.