Apple
The 800 lbs gorilla of the smartphone market will all the momentum, sales growth and hype. Apple’s game plan has been to aim for a middle of the road, one-size-fits-all product offering that is updated annually. A burgeoning apps store with 15,000 apps and 1.5B downloads supports this one-device-to-rule-them-all strategy by shifting the basis of competition from smartphone to mobile computing device. It is also building secondary strength as a mobile gaming device to rival PSP and DS.
Let’s talk about the iPhone SDK for a second here. iPhone SDK is basically a scale down version of the MAC OSX which itself is a beautifully skinned POSIX OS hailing all the way back to Steve Jobs neXt computing days. It’s primary programming language is OO-enabled version of C called Objective C (note that it is not C++), until recently, not a standard programming language taught in schools because, well it was only really good for the MAC.
Compared to more programming languages like Java and .NET, Obj-C lacks is a more primitive programming language with its own quirks. It uses pointers, requires explicit memory management opening up a level of complexity that, while easy not too difficult for C/C++ coders to adapt to, is foreign to more numerous web developers used to the common LAMP tools.
The Obj-C and COCOA framework is good and bad for Apple. Learning Obj-C takes time and programming in it is more complicated limiting the absolute number of potential iPhone developers. However Obj-C is specific only to the MAC OSX platform, meaning its not very useful anywhere else (at this time anyways). This creates a level of lock-in as trained-iPhone developers, once familiar with the SDK would be loath to switch to other platforms.
Palm
Launched to great fanfare and captured the imagination of the Digitari in mid-2009 and has tried to differentiating itself from iPhone because of its multi-taking OS and physical keyboard.
Despite being lauded as the only credible competitor to iPhone, it is still running 2 yrs behind the iPhone with limited apps, installed base, a significantly less capable SDK and significantly less resources to help play catch. It’s goal in the next 9-15 months is to continue to ramp sales, generate some good incoming cashflow and continue to play the device game and iphone alternative to disgruntled AT&T users.
Nokia
Nokia was significantly wounded in its recent quarter earnings call where it pulled in its sales and earning forecasts and falling demand for vanilla ‘feature phones’ and inability to capture growth in smartphone sales with its N97. Pundits where quick to jump on it calling this quarter Nokia’s “Motorola Moment” a reference to the day when the bottom fell out of Moto and deriding the phone maker as bereft of innovation.
The world’s largest cell phone maker, Nokia has been traditionally strong in everywhere outside of the US and does have good market position in the emerging world including India, LatAM and parts of Asia, in addition to its home market in Europe.
On the smartphone-side, Nokia continues to push the Symbian OS which is has now completely open-sourced. It’s roots hail from the Psion PDA of the mid-90s, no one would accuse Symbian of being a modern mobile OS like Android . While Nokia and the Symbian consortium and desperately trying to update the SDK and allow developers to use modern languages such as Java, .NET and Ruby (funny how we think of Ruby as modern now because of the popularity of Rails), much of the code is still written in the C/C++. Worse yet, unlike iPhone, the platform is somewhat fragmented – code for the N60 must be ported to the N97. I haven’t research further but I potentially also see issues about lack on commonality in form factors which could also be an issue for Android phones down the road too.
On the apps side, Nokia did recently launch its App Store and is trying to build some differentiation off of its OVI messaging service which, if I understand the positioning correctly, is like Hotmail or any other free email service but also provides free mobile push as well to Nokia phones. You will need to standardize on the OVI address.
Research in Motion
RIM had its moment back in February when Obama insisted on keeping his BlackBerry ushering in the first “BlackBerry President” to much media attention. (The stock popped quite nicely on the back of this story I believe.) Because of its functionally superior mobile email solution and IT management tools, RIM current owns the business segment. As long as IT departments continue to call the shots on what devices employees can use, RIMM will have a moat here. Interestingly, there is a population of users that tote around both iPhones and Blackberrys, one for play and one for work.
In this segment, the one kink in the armor is suitability of the BlackBerry platform for building modern mobile ENTERPRISE applications. Despite having the Storm, current buzz in the marketplace seems to be that iPhone, with its familiar UI scheme to end users (I mean does anybody really do anything with BBYS besides email and that breaker game?), standardized platform capabilities and form factor (there is only one model of iPhone afterall) that iPhone might in fact be a more suitable platform that BBYS despite their strong market share number in this segment.
Product strategy-wise, RIM is opting proliferation strategy aiming a different type of BBY for different segments. Curve and Tour for high end execs/texters. Clamshell ‘berry for more casual senders and Storm for folks with iPhone envy but enable either because of carrier or IT dept restrictions to own and iPhone.
RIM is also trying to branch out into the consumer space and has started devoting some serious marketing dollars to generating mainstream attention – U2 + Blackberry campaign anyone? Like Apple and Nokia, it has also launched its own appStore. It has found this segment slow going.
HTC
Started out as a WinMo ODM and white-label supplier to the network providers and has grown over time. HTC truly started hitting its stride when it started enlisting the likes of professional design firm One & Co. , to help in its product development. (The collaboration was so successful that it acquired One & Co in late 2008.)
HTC has recently focused on the development of Android based phones and is responsible for the Google G1 (the very first Android phone) and more recently the HTC Hero and MyTouch. To date, it has been one of the primary beneficiaries of the Android ecoSystem.
Motorola
Like Palm, Motorola is engaged in building its own last minute hail-mary phone, but based on the Android OS. It plans to ship its first Android phone sometime in H209. Interestingly enough, the team at Moto working on draws its roots from from Good Technology which Moto acquired in 2006.
While details are sketchy, Moto seems to be planning a product proliferation strategy with different phones aimed at different segments.
Microsoft
Never one to count out big bad Redmond, MS is planning a revamp of its WinMo operating system with WinMo 6.5 and 7.0 on the roadmap. There is also additional rumors of a MS/Zune branded phone bringing MS to the direct handset manufacturer like iPhone and Palm. Additionally, MS’s acquisition of Sidekick manufacturer Danger (the founders who went on to found Android, acquired by Google) has yet to bear any fruit though rumours they are developing WinMo specific services perhaps in line with Ray Ozzie’s Software AND Services mantra.
If reports on the MS Zune phone are true, that leaves Android as the only credible 3rd party Mobile OS. (I’m leaving out Symbian and MobLin).
