I am baffled at the money that MSFT is throwing into the Win7 moble OS. I think this is a waste of time; they missed the boat, by a long ways.
IMHO, in 3 years the market will settle into
30% iOS, especially if Verizon, T-Mobile and others go with Apple.
30% Android - the Open OS is going to plauge Apple. This will be augmented by developers who create a great game, then export their software to run on Android.
20% Research in Motion (RIM) - the Blackberry is the only accepted Gov’t smartphone, and the inertia that Blackberry has in the Industrial market is going to be tough to break.
This leaves 20% for Symbian, WebOS, Microsoft and other niche’ players.
Look at the link. Gartner predicts a different market shakeout in 3 years.
Symbian 30.2
Android 29.6
Research In Motion 11.7
iOS 14.9
Windows Phone 3.9
Other 9.6
My guess is that Microsoft is eyeing Symbian overseas. Android is also a big player in Asia. In Asia, you really need multi-lingual support, and Windows Phone 7 excels at it (I’ve played with it, inside Microsoft’s Shanghai offices - experience is seamless when configured as Chinese or English or German - the 3 languages I tried).
Symbian also gets the multi-language support right. Android still has a way to go. iOS is pretty poor, in this regard.
I think Gartner is pretty much spot-on. Symbian has a MASSIVE lead right now (40%+ of the market), and that will take a few years to overcome. Android’s been accepted and used by every phone maker save Apple and Nokia (both of whom are losing marketshare to Android).
RIM is dropping, and as Android picks up more and more integration with enterprise solutions, it’ll lose even more (I use my Android tablet and my WinMo phone and my calendar and contacts on both are automatically synchronized between my Outlook app and the Exchange servers and iCal servers of my clients - it just works).
My guess, for 2014:
Android: 35%
Symbian: 30%
Win Phone 7: 12%
iOS: 12%
RIM: 10%
Others: 1%
Symbian and Win Phone 7 will be predominantly on the strength of Asian sales (ultra-slick support for Mandarin, Thai, Hindi, etc - not bad markets when you consider half the world’s population lives in China, India, or the countries between them). Android takes the lead, and iOS becomes a player really only in the US (much like most Apple products - a player in the US only).