Mobile Terminal OS Competition

1
Mobile Terminal OS Competition

• Ville Lehtonen, 49515B

2
Scope and agenda

• The Market in general
• The Operating Systems
• Symbian
• Windows Mobile
• Palm OS
• Linux (Montavista)
• Other Stakeholders
• Brand
• Conclusions

3
Mobile Operating Systems

• Mobile phone performance has increased
  drastically in the last 5 years
• Color screens
• Cameras
• Up to 80 Mt of memory
• The need for a real operating system is obvious
• Marketplace is too big for any major player to
  ignore
• Considerable synergy with other systems
• PC, consoles

4
The current market status

• PDAs were still the bigger market in 2003, but
  smart phones will probably beat them in 2004
• PDA sales roughly 10 million a year
• 5.3 to 17.9 drop in PDA sales in 2003,
  depending on source
• 60 Symbian, 22 Palm OS and 6,6 Windows in
  April 2003 (ARC Group, 2003)
• The potential is immense
• 1.29 billion mobile phone users in September 2003
• 100 million data users in Sept 2003
• Mostly in Korea and Japan
• Number of smart phones estimated to reach 45
  million by 2007 (ARC Group, 2003)

5
Symbian

• Founded by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Panasonic
  and Psion
• However Nokia now owns 63,3 of Symbian
• Designed for mobile systems
• Small memory footprint
• Minimal battery consumption
• Minimal hardware requirements
• Over 10 million phones using symbian sold by 2003
  
• Massive industry support
• 2,090,000 google hits

6
Windows Mobile

• Windows CE name evolution
• Windows Smartphone
• Pocket PC
• Windows Mobile 2003
• Dominant in the PC industry
• Does not manage power as well as Symbian or Linux
• Significant industry support
• Compaq, Dell and Motorola
• 3,230,000 google hits
• Used Windows CE

7
Palm OS

• PalmSource, Inc
• PalmOne makes hardware
• Overall market leader in PDA / Smart phone OS
• Over 30 million sold
• 20 000 software titles
• Expanded to the smart phone market with the Treo
  product line
• Product of Handspring, which Palm bought
• Had a 22 share of the market in early 2003
• Has most likely gone down
• 3,550,000 google hits

8
Linux based Operating Systems

• Montavista Linux CEE by Montavista software is
  the most serious entrant
• Open Source
• Low Industry support
• Most of it is coming from the far east
• Motorola balancing between Windows and Linux
• Boasts dynamic power managements
• But not much else
• Has lost the price advantage
• 113,000 google hits

9
The Hardware Industry

• Mobile phone producers behind Symbian
• Nokia, SonyEricsson, Panasonic, Motorola,
  Samsung, Lenovo (China), Siemens, NEC, Toshiba
• Palm OS
• Samsung, Sony, PalmOne, Foundertech, Kyocera,
  Lenovo
• Windows Mobile
• Compaq, Motorola, Samsung, Philips, Fujitsu,
  Orange
• Linux
• Motorola, Nexterm, ELT, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic,
  Philips, NEC, Toshiba

10
Software producers

• Software makers can make or break OSs
• Has been seen before
• All the systems are open
• Windows software dominates the market
• Linux presence negligible
• Palm even worse
• Symbian nonexistant
• Convergence will favor the incumbent Microsoft
• Switching costs are already lowest when using
  Windows Mobile

11
The Gaming Industry

• Significance to OSs experienced on the PC side
• I-Mode proof that it works in mobiles as well
• Games a huge market in their own right
• A three way struggle with linux sitting on the
  sidelines
• Massive competition for MMO games for all systems
• Palm participates by emulating Nintendo
• Will Sony support Symbian?

12
Presence Services and Finances

• Presence services and digital identity growing
• Verified by Visa
• Microsoft Passport
• Instant messaging, E-mail on the side
• Liberty Alliance
• Symbian shareholders with Sun, Intel and others
• Getting users is the key
• Who will benefit from the convergence?
• Credit Card companies, Banks, OS creators, Mobile
  phone producers, Instant messengers, ISPs?
• Will all even survive the process?

13
Telcos and ISPs

• Microsoft control of mobiles might allow it
  control of the VoIP market
• How will the Telcos react?
• Billing becomes increasingly difficult
• Microsoft or Nokia ambitions in the presence
  services troubling
• Telcos and ISPs lose a lot of potential revenue
• NTT Docomo, Sprint, Nextel, TeliaSonera among the
  Telcos in Liberty Alliance
• AOL, Jabber from the internet side
• What is left for Telcos and ISPs?

14
Governments

• Digital citizenship for payment purposes allows
  effective taxation by companies
• Whats new? Banks have done this before
• Might grow to involve all commerce
• Which makes it bigger than banking
• Winner-takes-it-all seems unlikely to be allowed
• Personal information becoming a commercial
  product
• Not new, but might grow to new dimensions
• To what degree will the government allow it?

15
Brand

• Differences in the Operating Systems relatively
  small
• The mass market will be won or lost on an
  emotional level
• Microsoft and Nokia the strong brands in the
  market
• Nokia might be a brand name, but Symbian is not
• Microsoft 2, Nokia 6
• Many other players have strong brands
• Sony, HP, Samsung, Ericsson, Panasonic etc
• Everyone knows Microsoft never loses
• Linux has a niche market feel to it
• Relatively poor mass market awareness of Palm OS

16
Conclusions

• Brand weight in the market is massive
• Microsoft and Nokia dominant
• Nokia lacking on the software front
• Sony and its gaming empire in a key position
• How can interoperability with Microsoft dominated
  desktop machines be guaranteed?
• Linux does not have much going for it
• Nor does Palm OS
• Hard to tell which way the Far East will go
• Might be most significant of all with Chinas 260
  million users
• Lots of local solutions already (I-Mode)