3. Mobile operating systems
A lot happened in the world of mobile operating systems in 2009 and, with the mobile platform taking on increasing importance beyond mere communication, the stakes are very high.
It's been a bad year for the incumbents, especially Nokia-owned Symbian and Microsoft's Windows Mobile. They're both losing market share despite Nokia turning Symbian into an open platform and Microsoft rebranding version 6.5 ‘Phone'. The problem they both have is that their user experience has a bad reputation and that Apple and Android are perceived as fresher and sexier.
While Apple's iPhone continued to go from strength to strength in 2009, the big winner was Google's Android, which came from essentially a standing start to become the hot smartphone OS by the end of the year. Android's openness is attractive to developers and handset makers are increasingly behind it, as is the company at the heart of most phones - ARM.
So the question for 2010 is how big can Android get and what are its competitors going to do about it? The smartphone sector can be broken down, as ever, into consumer and business users. While there's a fair bit of overlap between the two, the dominant player in the business sector seems to be BlackBerry right now, while the iPhone is the preferred choice for many consumers.
Microsoft looks like it is targeting BlackBerry primarily, and will be hoping to get a similar reception for Windows Mobile 7 as it did for Windows 7. Nokia seems to have given up on Symbian as a high-end smartphone OS and is trying to take on Google at its own game with the Linux-based Maemo. In a year's time we'll have a clearer picture where the mobile OS power lies, and what the holders plan to do with it.
