Android devices continue to dominate UK smartphone sales

[3GScottishUser]

Google’s Android has claimed almost half of the UK smartphone market for the 12 weeks ending 7 August 2011, according to the latest statistics from consumer analyst firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Android now holds a 47.1% share of the UK smartphone market, followed by BlackBerry with 21.5% and Apple with 20.8%. Symbian trails behind in fourth place with 7.2%, while Windows Mobile 7 has 1.7%, Bada 0.8% and Windows Mobile 0.7%.

Compared with the same 12 weeks in 2010, the big winner is Android, which increased its market share by 24.2%. The biggest loser was Symbian, down 19.1% and Apple iOS, down 7.2%.

Full Article: http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/News/12547/Android_devices_continue_to_dominates_UK_smartphon e_sales.aspx

[Ben]

All top manufacturers are likely to have increased unit sales, but the market has grown significantly with the introduction of cheaper Android devices enabling Android to continue its surge.

AFAIK, no one Android seller in the UK surpasses RIM or Apple.

But who'd have thought Symbian would be so rapidly usurped as the UK's number one smartphone OS? Well, apart from many of us here at Talk3G, anyway? ;) That it took so long to happen, but then happened so suddenly and dramatically, still makes my eyes wide with wonder despite knowing of Symbian's impending doom for a good few years.

As Android dominance continues, the prospects for manufacturers selling the devices surely only improve. Despite fierce competition, that low-end PAYG Android customer on a ZTE may well want to stick with Android and upgrade within the ecosystem (I haven't seen stats, but I'm certain of it), and that opens doors for HTC, Samsung etc, while high-end Android buyers may look to the low and mid range handsets for family and friends based on their own familiarity. Yes, differentiation is and will continue to be difficult, but the loyal customer base is growing rapidly.

I do envy an Android user's capability to chop and change manufacturers at will. Providing all your 'stuff' is with Google, it's surely trivial to change handsets and still have all your stuff?

[DaveC]

The other thing I notice is how poor the figures for Windows 7 are. It will be interesting to see if the tie up with Nokia can push this up, but it is going to be one heck of a climb.

I would not be surprised if Blackberry is the next to see a significant drop. As iOS and Android become more business friendly it seems that it is the teenage market that is keeping RIM up - and we all know how fickle that market can be.

As for WebOS?

[Ben]

I'd be surprised if Nokia and Microsoft can't get to 10% share for Windows Phone 7. Nokia, in particular, don't seem to have much else to live for - if they can't recover past that point it feels like they'll fade away entirely in a rather Motorola-esque fashion. That we're having to wait so long for new Nokia's may well be a good thing... so long as when they come, they're good, as the initial, and late, 3G Nokia's were in the face of the competition at the time.

Blackberry is an odd one, isn't it? It's the in-thing for young people, definitely, forming what seem to be very tight communities of users with a heavy dependence on BBM. I think it's the BlackBerry's ability to make textual communication so quick and easy, through BBM and the good quality keyboards sporting physical keys, that is the real appeal. It highlights how this segment values communication as the 'killer app' over many other factors, including a mass of apps and games. It's a trend that may well be eroded, or even swing wildly out of fashion, but for now I can see the sense in the situation - especially when you look at how much cheaper a Blackberry is than an iPhone, and how much more robust.

Again, Blackberry in enterprise is relatively assured, but here I think security, integration, and price are key factors. Google and Apple, or even Microsoft thanks to the consumery Windows Phone 7, are yet to be challengers - but that could change relatively quickly should either turn their gaze to the sector.

Ah, WebOS :p

[Hands0n]

RIM in Enterprise is definitely assured a few more years. But I am seeing more iPhone take up in that particular zone as the IT departments finally get their heads around the fact that the OS and hardware are perfectly suited to the environment and they won't be dragged to hell for buying Apple kit. I would not want to speculate how long it will take for iOS to displace RIM in the Enterprise space, but I do believe it will happen. As far as Android is concerned, at this time it is not considered an Enterprise-worthy device. That may change in the future, but it also does not appear to be the market that Google (or the Android manufacturers) are aiming for.

RIM elsewhere seems to be a roaring success, even with the English looters it seems :) Interesting that BIS is very much less securely encrypted than BES, as an aside. Looking at the crop of RIM kit that is available it is clear that the company is aiming at all possible markets. How cheap is it to get a BB these days? Less than £170 gets you one on PAYG, and that would have been unthinkable a couple of years back. Even on contract, the high-end BB kit is very easy for the less well off to get their hands on.

And so turning to Android, like VHS this OS is becoming fairly ubiquitous, mostly because of its affordability. Devices to fit all budgets and pockets are available. We have the likes of ZTE and Huawei flooding the [global] market with dirt cheap smartphones. And at the high end we have Samsung, Sony, HTC and others filling the pockets of the well heeled. But also, these top dollar Androids are appearing on extremely affordable, if lengthy, contracts.

The same is now happening with iOS devices. For £35 down a customer can walk out of a mobile phone store with an iPhone 4 on contract.

What all that is going to do to market figures is anyone's guess. With its spread of manufacturers Android cannot fail to achieve a significant market share above all of the others. How this must really miff Nokia who were so disparagingly dismissive of the OS in its early G1 days.

That then leaves the niche OSes, WP7, Symbian and the others. I figure they'll bump along the bottom for a while before someone decides to bury them. Microsoft have all but lost the Enterprise business in mobile, I am not convinced they could win it back in any significant volume, especially as WP7 deliberately eschewed Enterprise and almost 12 months on it still does.

[miffed]

I am not so sure about the iPhone , I think there is a section of society that would rather die (seriously !!) than admit that iOS is "actually quite good" :D

I think these people would rather cling on to .... well , anything else at all really, rather than go to Apple !

I thing a *******isation of Android and Blackberry will prevail in Enterprise , I have been reading that BB's will be running android apps soon ?

[Hands0n]

I once worked for a very large UK national bank that had an IS director who did not like Bill Gates (as if he ever met him) and so steered this mighty corporation on to IBM OS/2 Warp for all of the branch terminals. Thousands of the buggers. Anyone who has ever worked with OS/2 Warp Server and Clients will understand completely what a screwed up decision that was. It blighted the IT departments supporting that platform for more than a decade!

IT decisions should be made impartially and based upon requirement not personal opinion or dislike of a leading figure.

That said, Android the OS, out of the box, is not ready for prime time Enterprise use. Love it or hate it, it matters not, but iOS is. I do think that RIM still has the Enterprise edge though.

[DaveC]

I am not so sure about the iPhone , I think there is a section of society that would rather die (seriously !!) than admit that iOS is "actually quite good" :D


iOS is good but I got fed up not being able to do what I wanted with it without playing the game of cat and mouse with Apple. Now I can have a choice of look, interface and a host of other things.

[Ben]

It's true, iOS is restrictive, and the 'ways around' the restrictions are far from ideal because Apple controls the OS so tightly.

The same restrictiveness is probably more of a benefit than a hindrance to enterprise, mind you, in terms of ensuring the uniformity of devices.

[Hands0n]

I think it also somewhat distracting to actually compare iOS and Android devices as if they were one and the same thing. I would rather liken them to personal computers, where the choice of OS rather defines the individual and what they expect/want/need to get out of the device.

Thus, a PC user may use Windows, OS X, Linux (fragmented into hundreds of distributions, each with their energetically loyal followers) or some other OS.

Like PCs, where you can do most of what you want across all of them, each particular OS has its own qualities, attributes and recognition in the market. Enterprise, for example, is almost wholly Windows based, with a little OS X and even less Linux (with few exceptions of course).

So with "smartphones" my question, when I'm asked, tends to be along the lines of "What do you want to do with it?", and from the response I'll compose an answer.

In making regular and routine daily use of an iOS and Android device, interchangeably where possible, I can appreciate both sides of the "argument" coin between iOS and Android. They look and feel largely the same, but the differences are as subtle as they are stark. Apple's lock-down of iOS is a blessing and a curse. Likewise, Android's near-anarchy is the same. Both excite and frustrate me in equal measure, I'd say.

I've used BB personally and in the Enterprise. I really do not care if I never lay hands on a BES server ever again, particularly with Microsoft Exchange. The last BB I used was the Bold 9700, very nice it was, but I was going stir crazy after six weeks of a four week personal challenge! :) And the next time I hold a Symbian in my hands (the Nokia N8 being the most recent) it will only be to throw it with all my might into the river Thames.

Rushing back to on topic :confused: I am not surprised at Android's ascent, remarkable it has been. It will level off at some point, Android is not going to sweep away all before it. But unless Google and the manufacturers really mess things up, I do believe that Android's future is completely assured.

[3GScottishUser]

I see HTC are first with Mango offering 5" and 3.4" models according to the Sunday Times. They seem upbeat about the latest version of Windows Phone 7 and predict a 10%+ market share once Nokia launch their Mango models in Q4 2011.

[Hands0n]

I think that it is worth keeping in mind how completely dismissive of everyone else's technology both Microsoft and Nokia have been. In that respect, they are ideal bed partners.

I recall very well how Nokia totally dismissed Android, citing it as a complete irrelevance in the face of Symbian. Good heavens, what drugs were they on? Completely ignoring iOS and how closely Android was following on that OS's heels Nokia played King Canute. Meanwhile, Microsoft did their usual thing and donned the Emperors New Clothes, blithely strutting around the place telling everyone how lovely their product was (still WM6.5 or thereabouts). Yes indeed, an ideally suited couple in my opinion. And they deserve all that they get.

Mango has yet to prove itself against the incumbent versions of Android and iOS - and from what I have seen it is still heavily overshadowed by both of those two. It has taken Microsoft a good nine months to come out with Mango to supersede the first outing of WM7. Meanwhile we have seen several releases from the other two and with Android 3.2 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and iOS 5 just about to be released it seems to me that Mango has been hopelessly outpaced.

Can the Microsoft/Nokia partnership arise phoenix-like out of the ashes what was Nokia+Symbian? I certainly would not be placing any bets on that myself.

[miffed]

LOL , heres a reminder - Steve Ballmer really does have a talent for getting things SO wrong with such conviction !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwIUEnXctuA

[Wilt]

LOL , heres a reminder - Steve Ballmer really does have a talent for getting things SO wrong with such conviction !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwIUEnXctuA

To be fair, at the time that video was uploaded, Android was only an announcement and the iPhone couldn't use third party apps. If you watch further into the video the Symbian CEO gives the reasoning for being so dismissive of Android - similar things have been tried before and failed. If you combine that with the fact that many products that Google release don't gain traction, the smart money would have been to be dismissive like that.

Fortunately, things turned out very differently, but that is how the picture looked at the time. Obviously Microsoft (and Steve) were dead wrong and should have been working on a better product than WM 6.5 - but Microsoft is a big company and the innovative ideas will find it very hard to find their way into products when you have probably 5 layers of management who don't want to take risks and knew that at the time, their only real competition was Symbian.

[miffed]

Oh come on , you have to admit Ballmer sets himself up for ridicule on theses predictions !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

[Wilt]

Oh come on , you have to admit Ballmer sets himself up for ridicule on theses predictions !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

But he was right there, the iPhone dropped in price, did it not? The pricing for the original iPhone was ridiculous, the thing wasn't even a real smartphone - there were no third party apps! It's easy to look back at what people have said in the past and say they were stupid - but these little snippets need to be put into context.

[Ben]

Surely a smart man never underestimates his competition. Seems to be that's all Steve Ballmer ever seems to do.

But then placed in situations where you have no innovative ideas coming on stream of your own, perhaps the only thing to do is make vehement rebuttals in order to keep the faithful.

It's entirely possible that Apple and Google will be in similar places 5-10 years from now. iOS and Android could have evolved phenomenally, yet no longer resonate with the needs of the time - allowing another disrupter to sweep in just as they did themselves over MS and Nokia.

[3GScottishUser]

But then placed in situations where you have no innovative ideas coming on stream of your own, perhaps the only thing to do is make vehement rebuttals in order to keep the faithful.

One would have to completely ignore the very favourable press and industry reception recently re Windows 8 with it's seemless integration into Desktops, Laptops, Netbooks and Tablets. It seems to have taken the industry by surprise as it does include some very unique innovative features. Check out the YouTube video below to catch up on where Windows is heading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I

Windows Mobile 7.5 also looks like it could make inroads with Nokia, HTC, LG and Samsung supporting it. I am confident that once people see the user interface they might be tempted to switch from iOS or Android. A preview of it can be found at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpI8252TieM&feature=share

One other interesting fact is that Windows 7 has been the fastest selling version of Windows to date with over 450 Milllion licences sold since October 2009. Thats about 650,000 licences sold per day!

So is Mr Balmer a man heading a huge corporation with no innovative ideas? The buyers of computing equipment over the last few years don't seem to think so and the press and computing professionals given previews of new software have specifically commented that Microsoft now have some very unique ideas and a distincive style of offering that is easier to use and could appeal to lots more people.

One has to remember that thoughout the years Microsoft, Google and Apple have all made some very wise strategic decisions and it would be foolish not to think all of those major players have some excellent new unique ideas in the pipeline to develop their businesses and the financial clout to carve out market share.

[Hands0n]

Ballmer and the others have all joined the hallowed ranks of those who made very public, incredibly naive and incorrect predictions based on nothing more than rhetoric and spin. IBM, for example, predicted no more than 100,000 PCs would ever be sold, globally. Decca said that The Beatles would amount to nothing at all, and so the list goes on.

Sure, Ballmer may well have got it absolutely spot on. But Apple have been underestimated by Microsoft several times before, and it was foolish to do so again. Also, yes, Google products do often amount to nothing much, but in the wake of what we now know as iOS it was completely reasonable to predict that the world's manufacturers would go for a modern smartphone OS that would, at least on paper, cost them virtually nothing and enable them to gain very rapid traction into the market that had just been defined by Apple's iPhone.

It is always dangerous to make sweeping predictions and I am not about to fall foul of my own criticisms - but Microsoft's strength is in a single product line, that being its range of OS for desktops and servers, although less so in the latter category as time marches on. The company has tried very many different things with varying degrees of success and failure. Anyone recall Microsoft CRM? Where is it now? And what about Microsoft's take on the iPod? They completely shot themselves in the foot launching the Zune and in one go trashing their existing customer's music collections, requiring them to buy again if they wanted the new device. Apple must have pee'd their pants laughing as the iPod entrenched itself in the people's psyche as the de-facto MP3 player.

Windows 8 remains vapourware until it hits the streets and in products. Can Microsoft deliver on the vision of such seamlessness? Perhaps, but their prior record is not that great. Their OS takes an amazing amount of maintenance over time, beyond the wit of the masses, which gives a lot of people and businesses gainful employment. For several years I did quite well out of bailing out individuals, SOHO and SMEs from their Windows-based catastrophes, the Registry being the curse of the OS throughout all of it's iterations and incarnations. Windows 7 follows faithfully, although thankfully I am well out of supporting the OS these days. Windows 8 is unlikely to be much better in these terms, shiny shiny but with the same legacy of terminal problems over a period of time.

Turning to Windows Mobile for a moment, having sampled WM7 for a few weeks I was left unimpressed given that it was so far away from the established bar set by iOS and Android. WM7.5 is just an iterative step forward with a huge time between the two versions. Microsoft have to move much quicker.

But for me, the biggest negative of Windows Mobile OS is the tight physical design constraints placed upon the manufacturers. It is incredible to see people carp on endlessly about how restrictive Apple is with the iOS and iPhone design (it really isn't), and then those very same people fawn over Microsoft WM7 with an even more draconian paradigm. I am not a developer but I know when OS I would choose ahead of WM.

Yes, of course Microsoft have made some good strategic decisions, the XBox being one such. The global inertia established by their PC/Server OS continue to carry them onward, although there is definite erosion from the likes of Linux and OS X. And the threat posed to Microsoft by iOS and Android in the tablet market is very real indeed. Can WM8 come up with the goods here? For sure, Microsoft do not control the Tablet business and are a long way behind in time and product.

[Ben]

One would have to completely ignore the very favourable press and industry reception recently re Windows 8 with it's seemless integration into Desktops, Laptops, Netbooks and Tablets. It seems to have taken the industry by surprise as it does include some very unique innovative features. Check out the YouTube video below to catch up on where Windows is heading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I

Windows Mobile 7.5 also looks like it could make inroads with Nokia, HTC, LG and Samsung supporting it. I am confident that once people see the user interface they might be tempted to switch from iOS or Android. A preview of it can be found at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpI8252TieM&feature=share

One other interesting fact is that Windows 7 has been the fastest selling version of Windows to date with over 450 Milllion licences sold since October 2009. Thats about 650,000 licences sold per day!

So is Mr Balmer a man heading a huge corporation with no innovative ideas? The buyers of computing equipment over the last few years don't seem to think so and the press and computing professionals given previews of new software have specifically commented that Microsoft now have some very unique ideas and a distincive style of offering that is easier to use and could appeal to lots more people.

One has to remember that thoughout the years Microsoft, Google and Apple have all made some very wise strategic decisions and it would be foolish not to think all of those major players have some excellent new unique ideas in the pipeline to develop their businesses and the financial clout to carve out market share.
My comment was intended to be purely directed at the lack of innovation around mobile at MS when iOS and Android were emerging. Hence the vehement rebuttal by Ballmer. Yes, MS have since had at least critical success with Windows Phone 7. But thanks for the critique and videos ;)

[3GScottishUser]

It is always dangerous to make sweeping predictions and I am not about to fall foul of my own criticisms - but Microsoft's strength is in a single product line, that being its range of OS for desktops and servers, although less so in the latter category as time marches on.

Thats not strictly accurate though as sales of Office products are very significant for MS's profitability and they remain very popular despite there being cheaper and sometimes free alternatives. The XBox also springs to mind as a success with a significant share of the console games market. On-Line services look healthy too with over 355 million Hotmail users alone which MS can target advertising at not forgetting the rise of Bing (which now powers all Yahoo searches) and various other services like Skype which recently announced integration with Facebook for video calling.

Windows is a major product for MS but thinking about the above it is perhaps unfair to suggest that the whole company is dependent on a single product (even one which has been slated as poor allbeit it has been shipping 650,000 licences a day!), no more so than to suggest Apple is dependent on just their iPhone which has been spearheading their growth for the last few years.

[Wilt]

Ballmer and the others have all joined the hallowed ranks of those who made very public, incredibly naive and incorrect predictions based on nothing more than rhetoric and spin. IBM, for example, predicted no more than 100,000 PCs would ever be sold, globally. Decca said that The Beatles would amount to nothing at all, and so the list goes on.
Fair enough, they were silly predictions, however anybody expecting the CEO to yeah 'Yeah, they got us. Our products suck, go buy theirs' is much more naive than the one making the prediction.


Sure, Ballmer may well have got it absolutely spot on. But Apple have been underestimated by Microsoft several times before, and it was foolish to do so again. Also, yes, Google products do often amount to nothing much, but in the wake of what we now know as iOS it was completely reasonable to predict that the world's manufacturers would go for a modern smartphone OS that would, at least on paper, cost them virtually nothing and enable them to gain very rapid traction into the market that had just been defined by Apple's iPhone.
At the point of this video, Apple had released what was basically a feature phone with a touch screen and a good browser. Microsoft have never been in the feature phone business so as far as they were concerned, it was business as usual. If Apple hadn't gotten so popular due to the iPod, they wouldn't have even got the iPhone out to market, the operators would have laughed them out of the room. No branding?! And you want how much for it?! Ha!

Surely you can see why the iPhone was dismissed as a bit of a consumer toy? When it launched it had no app store, no apps at all, no multitasking (there was nothing to multitask), no custom ringtones, no push email. All these things (except the app store) were basic features of smart phones then...especially ones used by business, which was WMs market.


It is always dangerous to make sweeping predictions and I am not about to fall foul of my own criticisms - but Microsoft's strength is in a single product line, that being its range of OS for desktops and servers, although less so in the latter category as time marches on. The company has tried very many different things with varying degrees of success and failure. Anyone recall Microsoft CRM? Where is it now? And what about Microsoft's take on the iPod? They completely shot themselves in the foot launching the Zune and in one go trashing their existing customer's music collections, requiring them to buy again if they wanted the new device. Apple must have pee'd their pants laughing as the iPod entrenched itself in the people's psyche as the de-facto MP3 player.
Office? Exchange? Windows Live? DirectX? Xbox?

Saying Microsoft's strength is only in their desktop OS is like saying Google's strength is only in their search.


Windows 8 remains vapourware until it hits the streets and in products. Can Microsoft deliver on the vision of such seamlessness? Perhaps, but their prior record is not that great. Their OS takes an amazing amount of maintenance over time, beyond the wit of the masses, which gives a lot of people and businesses gainful employment. For several years I did quite well out of bailing out individuals, SOHO and SMEs from their Windows-based catastrophes, the Registry being the curse of the OS throughout all of it's iterations and incarnations. Windows 7 follows faithfully, although thankfully I am well out of supporting the OS these days. Windows 8 is unlikely to be much better in these terms, shiny shiny but with the same legacy of terminal problems over a period of time.
I often see these complaints about Windows, but when it comes time to suggest alternatives people are often stumped.

Mac? Ok, but only if you're willing to be tied to one hardware vendor. And even then, I have a strong suspicion things aren't as rosy as they seem on the outside

Linux? Christ, I consider myself a bit of a geek but I find myself spending hours searching through random forums to try and work out how to do the most simple thing.

The thing is, Windows is a great success. They brought computing to the masses, and made it seem easy. The problem is - it isn't easy. Especially when you need to support the millions of different configurations Windows does. So yes, when things go wrong with Windows, it is a nightmare to sort out. But only because that's how running a computer would be without Windows. The registry, yeah it's a problem, but what is the alternative? .ini files?


Turning to Windows Mobile for a moment, having sampled WM7 for a few weeks I was left unimpressed given that it was so far away from the established bar set by iOS and Android. WM7.5 is just an iterative step forward with a huge time between the two versions. Microsoft have to move much quicker.

But for me, the biggest negative of Windows Mobile OS is the tight physical design constraints placed upon the manufacturers. It is incredible to see people carp on endlessly about how restrictive Apple is with the iOS and iPhone design (it really isn't), and then those very same people fawn over Microsoft WM7 with an even more draconian paradigm. I am not a developer but I know when OS I would choose ahead of WM.
You can't please everybody, I suppose. Microsoft did try ultimate customisability, though. Didn't work. I think WM 6.5 is still being sold on some devices, which is the good news for you :).

I don't see how you can say Apple isn't restrictive, though. They don't license the OS so you only have a choice of (typically) two models at a time, and customisability extends to...changing the background.

I see WP7 as a half-way house between iOS and Android. Yes, individual manufacturers cannot customise the interface much, but this does ensure that the experience is always snappy, and, to use an Apple quote, it just works. Have you ever read reviews on Android phones that have the Sense UI? Or even worse, Motoblur? In an attempt to differentiate their devices manufacturers have proven themselves very willing to sacrifice performance to add extra glossy icons and nice little animations.

However, with WP7 you get a choice of different devices with different form factors that you don't get with iOS. How big do you want the screen? Keyboard or no keyboard? Landscape keyboard or portrait keyboard? And, while as an Android user I'm not completely up to date with this, Microsoft seem completely at ease with developers hacking away at the OS and making their own ROMs. In fact, last night I was reading about people putting WP7 on their HD2s and Microsoft are fine with it (http://wmpoweruser.com/microsoft-amused-by-htc-hd2-mango-hackers/).


Yes, of course Microsoft have made some good strategic decisions, the XBox being one such. The global inertia established by their PC/Server OS continue to carry them onward, although there is definite erosion from the likes of Linux and OS X. And the threat posed to Microsoft by iOS and Android in the tablet market is very real indeed. Can WM8 come up with the goods here? For sure, Microsoft do not control the Tablet business and are a long way behind in time and product.
I wouldn't say there is much erosion. Linux is still very much a geeks game, and Mac OS X? Their distribution model isn't scalable. Will never work.

Though how long desktop OSs like Windows will be required, I'm not sure. Perhaps only a few more iterations for Windows. As we know it, anyway.

[Hands0n]

Interesting rebuttal by Wilt - we've drifted OT a bit but to add a bit more spice to the conversation then :)

Apple, and latterly Microsoft, in their smartphone OS have sought to create a very controlled and closed architecture. The benefit of the Apple solution is that there is none of the widespread anarchy that exists in the Android world, and that Wilt has quite clearly featured in his discussion. Microsoft have, indeed, licensed their OS to other manufacturers, it had to, even with its partnership with Nokia. But the licensing is rigid to the point of hardware itself, buttons in specific places and order, sealed memory systems, strictly structured UI and so on. If you read back to my early feedback on the Samsung Omnia 7, loaned to me by Three, you will find why I found the WM7 OS quite so horrid. Yes, some love WM7, and probably anything that MS ever put out, but I ignore such driven passions :D

Turning to the Windows PC (desktop and server) OS ... I have been involved with Microsoft Windows since the first public release back in *mumble*. It was my "day job" in an international enterprise. NT is probably when Windows finally grew up. Like all companies that make it big, Microsoft got there because it was first, and because it licensed its OS for use on what would turn out to be a generic standard. If they didn't have the cooperation of Intel it wouldn't have been like that, and it took AMD (and others) to follow Intel in order for Windows to run on their hardware. In all of that time, however, the repeated assertions by Microsoft of creating the next marvellous OS have amounted to not very much at all. They even started to copy and lift ideas directly out of OS X when Vista came along (Gadgets anyone?). To my consternation, at least, Microsoft remain wedded to the Registry, a source of much income for me when I went freelance :D

I will also state, for the record, that it was Microsoft Office that sealed that company's successful fate in the Enterprise. Even today, how many private individuals have a legitimate copy of MS office running on their PC? Relatively recent discounting for "students" is a sign that MS recognise their product is prohibitively expensive outside of business, and the threat of other OS implementations of "Office" applications is tangible, particularly in the tablet business where a 'halo effect' could occur, as it does with MP3 players, that draws the public's attention away from the global de-facto OS. Reading between the lines, I would say that Microsoft well know and understand the insidious threat that is becoming ever present.

Alternative desktop/server OS to Microsoft? Linux has entered the enterprise and remains there. And as the likes of Ubuntu finally learn the lessons of history and become easier to manage they get some traction also. I'll cite HSBC, for an example, who replaced their global set of OS/2 Warp branch teller terminals with a complete re-write on Linux. In the server game there is a whole lot of Linux out there, unseen, and supporting absolutely huge environments with consummate ease. But yes, Linux is not mainstream on the desktop, although it is less "geeky" than ever before.

Mac OS X is a significant OS that should not be ignored too lightly. While it, too, is not mainstream, it is pretty much "the other" OS to Windows. The cost of the hardware is often slated but when a Windows peer is assembled the difference is in pennies. Although Samsung did manage to copy one of the Macbooks last year and come up with a price that exceeded the Apple counterpart! My own direct experience of Mac and OS X is that it is the most stable and reliable combination of OS and hardware available at any price. The entire ecosystem that comes with Apple kit extends across desktop and portable equipment. Seamlessness is the watchword, and it works. Most importantly of all, and almost completely overlooked by the other OS, is the inherent data security and assurance. With Time Machine, for example, it is almost impossible to lose your data. Out of the box the backup and recovery of not only data, but versions of data, works with minimal effort to set up. All of the other OS do not come even close, and require quite a bit of specific knowledge and deliberate purpose to establish anything like it. For that alone I would state that OS X sets the bar, even though in pure unit numbers it remains far behind Windows.

I am not predicting failure of any of the above, that would be foolish. But the market hold and position will experience a seismic shift, as it has already done so in financial worth terms. Apple trounces everyone with the iPhone, Google trounces Apple with Android, Nokia lose their No.1 position for smartphones, Microsoft enter the fray and partner up with Nokia, other smartphone OS emerge and flounder.

These are, as the Chinese are wont to say, interesting times.