The last year has seen some big movers and changes in the UK mobile
platform market with more and more consumers adopting smartphone
platforms such as Apple iOS and Google Android, with resulting increases
in mobile spending, especially on applications.
According to research by MediaCells (via Guardian), a research and insight company based in London, big changes took place in the UK mobile market during 2010, and continuing into 2011 as well. Their forecast for 2011 shows that the amount of so called feature phones will reduce heavily while we will see continued growth in smartphone penetration, where especially Blackberry (RIM), Android, and Apple iOS is standing to gain from the consumer change over to more advanced mobile solutions.
In fact, this 2011 forecast might prove to be on the cautious side, as new figures from Kantar World Panel indicates that Android is now leading the UK smartphone market with a 37% marketshare compared to Apple’s iOS with 22% and RIM with 23%, with especially Android and Apple taking marketshare from Nokia and their Symbian platform (in the process of changing to Windows). Their research also shows that over 70% of new customers coming to Apple iOS and Android are coming from non-smartphone platforms (feature phones).
Although i guess no one will really be surprised by these figures, considering the popularity of the top 3 smartphone platforms and the constant innovation and new product releases taking place. Looking at mobile phone promotions in the UK market these days, it is all about smartphones and what opportunities they open in terms of staying connected to social networks, applications, and games.
But is the increase in smartphone penetration and an increasing amount of time spent online and consuming media over mobile solutions making people spend more of their expendable income on their mobiles?
A recent Ofcom study into how we consumer media and communications confirm the changes in terms of the impact smartphones have had on media consumption and time spent on a mobile phone, but it is also showing that we are actually spending less of our expendable income on media these days compared to earlier. This does however cover off all media, including televisions, internet etc. and does not looks at mobile phone expenditure alone.
A recent report by research2guidance shows that UK smartphone owners spent over £280m on mobile apps in 2010 as the ‘app economy’ exploded on a global scale. This figure is expected to increase further as the app market matures and people start becoming more focused in how they use apps in their daily lives, and the smartphone and tablet market penetration increases.
Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) , Netbooks, Internet Tablets, Smart phones and Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPCs) maybe just buzzwords today, but they are without doubt the devices of the future. In a nutshell, these are portable, small form-factor devices capable of browsing the Internet and having their own set of applications which can be executed in limited memory and processing power.
Traditionally OSes like Windows CE and Symbian’s S60 were the popular smart-phone OSes a few years ago. Today Linux as an embedded or a Netbook OS takes the top slot.
As a result of this a number of SIGs (Special Interest Groups) were formed by bigger companies who decided to start investing seriously in Open Source Mobile platforms.
The following are few of them which are not only popular, but are also backed by big companies in terms of resources as well as funds.
Android : With HTC Touch and HTC Hero being a huge success, the Google-promoted mobile stack Android, is touted as something to look forward to. With a Java-like programming interface, the Android SDK is easy to install and start developing apps on. Android Apps for these smart phones are increasing in number and soon can be a serious contender for the iPhone App Store.
Maemo : Nokia’s 770 Internet Tablet was one of the first commercially available MID running Linux. The Nokia N10 is the latest offering from Nokia running on the Maemo platform. Although Maemo does have VoIP apps, it is primarily being designed for Internet Tablets rather than Smart phones.
Moblin : Molin, asuumably short for Mobile Linux, was an initiative from Intel. After the release of their Atom family of processors, Moblin recieved further push from Intel in engaging the community. Moblin, like Maemo, is primarily targetted towards Netbooks, MIDs and Internet Tablets. It utilizes some of the modern embedded linux components like the Gnome-based Clutter toolkit which used OpenGL to create fast and visually rich GUIs.
OpenMoko : The OpenMoko project has dual objectives, to provide an open source stack for Mobile phones and also to pave the way for developing open hardware for running this stack. The first commercial devices running OpenMoko was the Neo 1973 and the Neo FreeRunner from FIC. It was an open source geek’s dream come true with both open hardware as well as software. The stack is based on the OpenEmbedded specifications.
The above mentioned are just the some of the more popular open source stacks. There are a lot of other commercial open source stacks developed by companies like OpenedHand (now acquired by Intel), Azingo based in Pune and Ziilabs, which focus on PMPs (again based in Pune).
With the phenomenal success of platforms like Acer’s Aspire One or the EeePC or Sony and HP’s Pocket Netbooks, all the Giants have started allocating budgets and resources towards development of open source mobile stacks.
All in all, the day and age for Open Souce Mobile stacks has arrived !!!
According to research by MediaCells (via Guardian), a research and insight company based in London, big changes took place in the UK mobile market during 2010, and continuing into 2011 as well. Their forecast for 2011 shows that the amount of so called feature phones will reduce heavily while we will see continued growth in smartphone penetration, where especially Blackberry (RIM), Android, and Apple iOS is standing to gain from the consumer change over to more advanced mobile solutions.
In fact, this 2011 forecast might prove to be on the cautious side, as new figures from Kantar World Panel indicates that Android is now leading the UK smartphone market with a 37% marketshare compared to Apple’s iOS with 22% and RIM with 23%, with especially Android and Apple taking marketshare from Nokia and their Symbian platform (in the process of changing to Windows). Their research also shows that over 70% of new customers coming to Apple iOS and Android are coming from non-smartphone platforms (feature phones).
Although i guess no one will really be surprised by these figures, considering the popularity of the top 3 smartphone platforms and the constant innovation and new product releases taking place. Looking at mobile phone promotions in the UK market these days, it is all about smartphones and what opportunities they open in terms of staying connected to social networks, applications, and games.
But is the increase in smartphone penetration and an increasing amount of time spent online and consuming media over mobile solutions making people spend more of their expendable income on their mobiles?
A recent Ofcom study into how we consumer media and communications confirm the changes in terms of the impact smartphones have had on media consumption and time spent on a mobile phone, but it is also showing that we are actually spending less of our expendable income on media these days compared to earlier. This does however cover off all media, including televisions, internet etc. and does not looks at mobile phone expenditure alone.
A recent report by research2guidance shows that UK smartphone owners spent over £280m on mobile apps in 2010 as the ‘app economy’ exploded on a global scale. This figure is expected to increase further as the app market matures and people start becoming more focused in how they use apps in their daily lives, and the smartphone and tablet market penetration increases.
Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) , Netbooks, Internet Tablets, Smart phones and Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPCs) maybe just buzzwords today, but they are without doubt the devices of the future. In a nutshell, these are portable, small form-factor devices capable of browsing the Internet and having their own set of applications which can be executed in limited memory and processing power.
Traditionally OSes like Windows CE and Symbian’s S60 were the popular smart-phone OSes a few years ago. Today Linux as an embedded or a Netbook OS takes the top slot.
As a result of this a number of SIGs (Special Interest Groups) were formed by bigger companies who decided to start investing seriously in Open Source Mobile platforms.
The following are few of them which are not only popular, but are also backed by big companies in terms of resources as well as funds.
Android : With HTC Touch and HTC Hero being a huge success, the Google-promoted mobile stack Android, is touted as something to look forward to. With a Java-like programming interface, the Android SDK is easy to install and start developing apps on. Android Apps for these smart phones are increasing in number and soon can be a serious contender for the iPhone App Store.
Maemo : Nokia’s 770 Internet Tablet was one of the first commercially available MID running Linux. The Nokia N10 is the latest offering from Nokia running on the Maemo platform. Although Maemo does have VoIP apps, it is primarily being designed for Internet Tablets rather than Smart phones.
Moblin : Molin, asuumably short for Mobile Linux, was an initiative from Intel. After the release of their Atom family of processors, Moblin recieved further push from Intel in engaging the community. Moblin, like Maemo, is primarily targetted towards Netbooks, MIDs and Internet Tablets. It utilizes some of the modern embedded linux components like the Gnome-based Clutter toolkit which used OpenGL to create fast and visually rich GUIs.
OpenMoko : The OpenMoko project has dual objectives, to provide an open source stack for Mobile phones and also to pave the way for developing open hardware for running this stack. The first commercial devices running OpenMoko was the Neo 1973 and the Neo FreeRunner from FIC. It was an open source geek’s dream come true with both open hardware as well as software. The stack is based on the OpenEmbedded specifications.
The above mentioned are just the some of the more popular open source stacks. There are a lot of other commercial open source stacks developed by companies like OpenedHand (now acquired by Intel), Azingo based in Pune and Ziilabs, which focus on PMPs (again based in Pune).
With the phenomenal success of platforms like Acer’s Aspire One or the EeePC or Sony and HP’s Pocket Netbooks, all the Giants have started allocating budgets and resources towards development of open source mobile stacks.
All in all, the day and age for Open Souce Mobile stacks has arrived !!!
