The OS Wars Are Back
Did you believe Steve when he said a decade ago the OS war was over? Like the browser war, it seems it was only in hiatus. The mother of all OS wars is about to hit.
Personal computers-wise, in the past we’ve seen a few OS wars: DOS/Windows versus the rest; Windows 95 versus Mac OS; and Linux versus Mac OS X versus Windows 2000/XP/Vista.
However, look out for an OS war on mobile phones, and the rise and rise of smartphones.
The smartphone for all
The computer market is small compared to the mobile phone market. According to Bloomberg, annual sales of mobile phones are around four times that of personal computers.
Granted the smart phone section of this market is small, currently much less than the PC market, and Apple’s entry is going to shake things up in more than one way. Firstly, it challenges the whole design of smartphones, but more importantly, it is bringing people into that market who until now were not interested. As former Senior Editor of TreoCentral, Michael Ducker, says on Phone Different, “Apple has introduced the age of the smartphone to normal people.”
Is Apple’s phone truly a smartphone? Currently not, taking the strictest definition which allows for third-party application development and access to the system’s API. But that strict definition is being challenged by Apple and its phone.
What Apple’s entry does is blur the line between gadget phones and smartphones. That Bloomberg article says Apple has sold 700,000 iPhones. How many of those were bought by people who would never have bought a Treo or Blackberry? Quite a lot.
As the line continues to blur and phones become the ultimate convergent device, with decent cameras, full PDA, MP3 players, GPS, video players, and internet access, then phones that are just phones will become rarer and rarer. People will accept—and expect—that their phones will be all those things plus a portable computer.
Within a few years, what we once called smartphones will dominate the mobile phone market to the tune of one billion sales annually by 2012.
And, in regards to OS wars, this means the big one. Steve was drooling over 1% at MWSF, imagine how keen Apple would be to get 10 or 20% of mobile phones carrying the Apple OS? Likewise Microsoft and Windows.
The competitors
So let’s just step back and look at the situation. Currently, the smart phone market is dominated by Symbian, jointly owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and others, and Symbian holds about 70% of the smartphone market.
Apple has entered the mobile phone market with its own device—unlike previously where it partnered with an existing manufacturer (Motorola). However, Apple is following the same proprietary, non-licensed path as it did with the Mac (unsuccessfully), and the iPod (very successfully). The iPhone will fall somewhere in between, but Apple needs to be careful it’s not towards the Mac end.
Apple has left that door wide open for Microsoft to do another “PC” and get its OS on all the phones Apple doesn’t have—which currently stands at 99% of the market, or 97% of the smartphone market. That gives Microsoft free rein at all the other mobile phone manufacturers. And as we know from Windows, it doesn’t matter if it’s not better, as long as it’s similar. Small players have already adopted Windows.
Bill Gates would be pretty happy knowing that Apple will likely never license its phone OS to other manufacturers. Ironically, the best thing that could happen for Microsoft is for the iPhone to sell well.
Although it’s unlikely that Apple can capture huge market share like it did with the iPod, if it starts nudging 5% of the existing smart phone market, traditional mobile phone manufacturers, despite their investment in Symbian, will start to get a little nervous. Look at Palm for example. It dominated the handheld market but eventually went to Microsoft and Windows Mobile for a lifeline.
Symbian, on figures from last year, claims around 70% of the smartphone market, and Microsoft around 7%. Visually, Symbian already looks good, but can it produce an OS to match Apple’s or Microsoft’s? And quickly. What significant consumer-visible leverage does it have? What consumer has heard of Symbian?
Microsoft will always have the leverage of its desktop market and Apple its iPod market and to a lesser extent, its Mac market. What’s Symbian got? All of a sudden, despite being the dominant market share holder, it’s got to prove itself. Its anonymity could hurt it.
Looking at the Symbian phones available, how many of them have captured the public consciousness? Not even close to what Apple has done. The Nokia N77, which is coming soon, sounds pretty hot and feature-competitive with the iPhone, but who’s heard of it? Who’s talking about it?
Other OSes do exist in the phone market, such as Linux and RIM, but they will always struggle. Linux should challenge but drags one big millstone. No one in the Linux community seems to understand user friendliness. Just take a look at Ubuntu, which is claimed to be the user friendly Linux. Back to the drawing board. Linuxes are usually either too geek friendly or too Windows similar. Smartphones are going to be all about user friendliness, so Linux faces an uphill battle. Not surprisingly, it lost a quarter of its market share to Microsoft in Q1 2007 compared to Q1 2006.
It’s the software, stupid!
This new war isn’t about the device, the hardware. As Michael Ducker says in his essay on Phone Different:
Hype aside, the iPhone is the game-changing device that will turn the cellphone market from being about hardware to being about software. That’s no small task given that the main customers of cellphones (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile) haven’t seemed to care much at all about software. Instead they’ve focused on encouraging handset makers to go ever sleeker and smaller, marketing each subsequent handset as the next sexy fashion accessory. That was great and all, but we’re pretty close to an optimal size for a hold-in-your-hand handset. Where is the innovation going to happen next? Aside from power management, it will happen in the interactions you have with the device. And these interactions are governed by software.
The software starts with the OS.
With the smartphone market headed to one billion units in the next five years, expect a big fight for OS market share.
Forget what functionality the iPhone has or has not, it has already changed the expectation of what a mobile phone is. Fulfilling that new expectation is going to kick off a huge OS war between Apple, Microsoft, and Symbian.
And the winner? You.
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Comments
Good article Chris.
The Smartphone market is a potential huge bonanza for anyone that can grab significant share.
When subnotebooks are starting to be too large for some it becomes clear that a mobile platform that runs smaller yet functional apps is clearly needed for a large segment of the populace.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple license out the iPhone. I don’t believe they will be as dependent on the iPhone as they are on the Mac as phones are still a lower cost of entry product as compared to a computer system.
I say they will grow the market for 5 years and then perhaps seek to become a MVNO and bring more of the marketing and customer relations stuff in house if they find success.
Ditto, Chris. Nice article for my caffeinated break.
Symbian is currently in the dominant position in the mobile industry for one reason - monopoly status. Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, briefly Moto, Samsung, and even the Japanese FOMA, have standardized on this mobile OS. Symbian mobile OS is not available for retail consumption so consumers don’t have a choice, they are force-fed Symbian with their phone hardware.
Symbian GUI is adequate for eye-candy on a mobile but what matters is the “interaction” of that eye-candy with the layers down below and between the apps themselves. The iPhone v1.0 shows clearly the advance sublayers of OSX as implemented in a mobile. Most, if not all, of the embedded apps can interact with each other in a mere swipe or tap of your finger. How ingenious and simple! Why didn’t Nokia or the folks at Symbian think of this before?
So, they left a wide open door for Apple’s masterstroke in software ingenuity to provide mobile customers what they have been asking all along - integration simplicity. We got that and more with the first iPhone.
For those pundits and trolls, no the first iPhone is not perfect and that’s fine. There are many missing features that we would want - like the ability to use VoIP calling vice cellular, or the ability to use HSDPA vice EDGE, a hard-drive based iPhone vice flash, etc.
What these tell-tale signs do indicate is that Apple has lots of work to do in the coming years to completely fulfill the iPhone promise. When all the market segments are finally served with iPhone derivatives then perhaps the mobile industry’s oligopolies will finally wake up.
Until then, these sloths will keep pumping feature phones after feature phones without considering what their customers really want - simplicity.
And as for Apple licensing OSX mobile to these snobs? I doubt that they’re even interested however successful the iPhone will get. They will force Symbian to “copy” OSX mobile and they will come close. But to copy Apple’s ingenuity and mettle in software interaction design they will not. Have we forgotten M$ +10,000-strong developers have been trying over two decades and only come up with Vista?
If Apple chooses NOT to license the OS… and branches into multiple types of phones… is it possible for Apple to sell as many phones as Nokia does?
“Looking at the Symbian phones available, how many of them have captured the public consciousness? Not even close to what Apple has done. The Nokia N77, which is coming soon, sounds pretty hot and feature-competitive with the iPhone, but who’s heard of it? Who’s talking about it?”
EVERYONE in Europe and Asia is talking about the Symbian-based Nokia N95. Even Apple and Apple commentators have made numerous references to it. If you go onto any of the European cell phone forums, you’ll see large threads about it and people comparing the iPhone to it. It’s hard to walk down a street in England without seeing at least one person talking into one.
Symbian is like soccer. Vastly popular all around the world but totally off the radar in North America. Lots of people are talking about Thierry Henry’s move to Real Madrid but if you live in, say, San Fransico it might seem like no-one in the world likes Soccer. It’s very easy to dismiss Symbian as unknown if you live in North America.
Even if it is an unknown, does that really matter? Does Qualcomm have any issues with being a non-consumer orientated brand?
Yeah, but how well does the Apple phone OS run on a regular phone with minimal processor & regular buttons - the other 95% of the market? Presumably that’s where Symbian shines. There’s room for everyone.
Oh let the denials pour in from the Euro folks. The iPhone will come ashore soon enough over and you too will glee from its multitouch nirvana we call OSX on mobile. Remember, Apple has THE patent on this input technique on a mobile so forget Nokia or Ericsson copying it anytime soon without a license from The Steve.
And yeah, we too have the Nokia N95 in America. It’s comparable in features to the iPhone alright BUT never come close in its user interaction and feel of the iPhone. Refer to the last two Macbreak Weekly from the TWiT.TV to hear an objective experience from either phone from Leo Laporte himself.
As for Apple cranking iPhones numbering in the hundreds of millions like Nokia or Motorola, they don’t have to.
We all know that >80% of those phones are the low-end varieties anyway that sell for as low as $50 to the carriers each and sold as baits ($0) for long-term contracts. The device makers do not make much from these crappy phones - $10 at the most per unit. I am speaking from experience here folks.
Apple is targeting the sweet spot that will give them high margins of 30-50%! Oh how Nokia or Moto must be so envious of Apple’s big balls to price their phones at $500 and $600 and still sell out in a week! Damn it, Captain! We need reinforcement!
And never underestimate the manufacturing muscle of the Chinese people for they have given us $30 DVD players, the Wii, the PS3s, and just about everything you have in your kitchen. If they can manufacture over a 1 billion phones for Nokia, Moto, and the rest, they can manufacture twice that many for Apple given time and more engineering from Cupertino.
Have to agree with my other European colleagues, Symbian is hugely popular in all of the world, and one correction on Motorola- they are now committing to more handsets for the US market.
Microsoft hardly features in the UK, and Linux not at all
I think though at the end of the day the article missed the point. The mobile space is not the same as the PC world, so there will be no OS war, we will have several OS in the market.
My personal opinion as someone working in the high-tech mobile world is:
- Microsoft will not win this space, as it does not really get the market, especially the relationships. Mobile phone manufactures are distrustful of Microsoft, and do not like the control Microsoft has over the platform. Network operators similarly (the US aside) have Microsoft but it features as one of two devices.
-Symbian is seen as a good platform as there are many developers out there (same as Microsoft), and offers a certain amount of standardisation with UIQ and S60, which reduces cost for operators, and is not owned by one company. Symbian has built strong relationships with its partners, where the relationship is a partnership.
- I am huge Apple fan, so I think they will do relatively well, maybe surprising us all with their tightly coupled software, hardware and service. I am really looking forward to Apple driving other companies to innovate more and I am sure there are several ways to implement interfaces like Apple’s and not infringe patents. Would I buy an iPhone? Jury is out right now, having not played with one yet. 3G is probably a show stopper for me as personally I travel a lot for work, and 3G is needed for Japan and Korea. Most friends I talk to do not know what 3G is, let alone care.
- Ultimately for me, and the main point is the smart-phone market definition is really a grey area, when does a feature phone become a smart-phone? Consumers certainly do not care and why should they? My Nokia 6280 and N95 from a user perspective are almost identical, both support PIMs and decent data connections. With Nokia pushing WiFi and GPS in feature phones too. Nokia’s S40 NOS is the most widely used OS in mobile phones world-wide, and its capability continues to improve. I see Symbian pushing down and feature phone OS pushing up. Hence why I say I do not think there will be an OS war.
“And yeah, we too have the Nokia N95 in America.”
Which carrier sells the N95 in the US? In England, I can get it for free on a 1 year contract. Suddenly spending $600 on a phone doesn’t look so appealing.
“It’s comparable in features to the iPhone alright”
Actually, no. It’s got much better features than the iPhone. 5MP camera with autofocus, VGA 30fps video recording, MMS, HSDPA, removable battery, built-in GPS, 3.5mm headphone socket that accepts all third party headphones, natively coded third party apps, removable microSD with SDHC support, a full Bluetooth stack (OBEX, A2DP, etc.), user selectable ringtones… the list is quite extensive.
It’s only comparable to the iPhone because it has a Safari-based browser, syncs with iTunes and comes with a built-in YouTube application.
When the iPhone reaches Europe, it’ll be viewed as a fashion phone and nothing more. People will buy it like they buy Louis Vuitton handbags. People who appreciate technology will be disappointed with its backward features and limitations. A $600 phone that doesn’t support 3G will be a laughing stock in Europe.
“Refer to the last two Macbreak Weekly from the TWiT.TV to hear an objective experience from either phone from Leo Laporte himself.”
Apple commentators saying that the iPhone is beter? Woah. Next thing you’ll be telling me that a Microsoft-funded report says that Linux has a higher TCO than Windows! Shocking.
Actually, no. It’s got much better features than the iPhone. 5MP camera with autofocus, VGA 30fps video recording, MMS, HSDPA, removeable battery, built-in GPS, 3.5mm headphone socket that accepts all third party headphones, natively coded third party apps, removeable microSD with SDHC support, a full Bluetooth stack (OBEX, A2DP, etc.), user selectable ringtones… the list is quite extensive.
It’s only comparable to the iPhone because it has a Safari-based browser, syncs with iTunes and comes with a built-in YouTube application.
When the iPhone reaches Europe, it’ll be viewed as a fashion phone and nothing more. People will buy it like they buy Lious Vuitton handbags. People who appreciate technology will be disappointed with its backward features and limitations. A $600 phone that doesn’t support 3G will be a laughing stock in Europe.
Rich L, Robert Scoble got an N95 before the iPhone came out and sounded exactly like you: listing all the features, he couldn’t see how the iPhone could be better.
Since the iPhone came out, he’s changed totally. For example:
Even on the camera front I had to reboot my Nokia several times today. See, my camera runs out of memory after opening and closing too many apps. So my camera refuses to load on the Nokia. I have yet to see that behavior on the iPhone.
My Nokia rarely thrills.
I take it back. There is one time my Nokia thrills. When I get home and look at my photos. They remind me I had a good day and they are almost as good a quality as my Nikon pocket camera. Yet I have it with me.
And that’s why Eric Rice might really love the Nokia N95 but most everyone else would hate it.
Oh, one other thing. My battery died. Sigh. So unthrilling.
source: http://scobleizer.com/2007/07/04/web-rendering-differences-on-mobile-devices/
and
The iPhone is superior in almost every way to the Nokia N95. The battery life is better. The contact management is better. The Web browser is better. The photo taking experience is better. The screen is better. The wireless management is better.
The one HUGE thing that’s keeping me from getting rid of my Nokia is the camera.
I really am close to saying “screw it” and getting an iPhone anyway. It really is such a superior experience that I can’t justify ANYONE buying a Nokia over an iPhone. Seriously. It’s that divergent of an experience.
source: http://scobleizer.com/2007/07/01/comparing-n95-to-iphone/
Now Scoble is just one person - and not an Apple zealot - but it does show that you can’t fully appreciate the iPhone if you haven’t got your mitts on it.
It will be interesting to see if Apple go 3G in Europe and Asia - be nice if they do, we could get one-up on the Yanks for once.!
And I really think they’ll have no choice.
KevMc, nice piece.
I’m not sure about the bit:
“I think though at the end of the day the article missed the point. The mobile space is not the same as the PC world, so there will be no OS war, we will have several OS in the market.”
I reckon as phones become smarter and smarter and more like portable PCs, it will inevitably blow up into an OS war between Apple, Microsoft and Symbian. Even if all our apps are web based, Apple has shown so much more can be gotten out of the OS.
Chris, thanks
Enjoyed reading the article as I always enjoy a healthy discussion.
There was a rational (I forgot to include) for not thinking it will move the same way as the PC space is that phones are seen as a personal item, a fashion item, whereas very few get really excited by their computer (Mac users are maybe the exception, myself included). As part of that fashion item is the UI and underlying OS, and it capabilities.
I agree that Apple, Microsoft and Symbian will be battling away, Linux is OK but heavily fragmented, but I do not see other RTOSs from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and the Nucleus etc disappearing anytime I can see, in fact they seem to keep evolving and looking ‘smarter’!
My prediction is there will, in the near-future, be no smart/feature phone distinction (less than five years). Within the industry we cannot agree on the distinction anyway, and more importantly consumers definitely do not make that distinction. Rather it will be mobile computing devices (not talking UMPC, as I think the evolution of the mobile phone will be on the only device you carry around with you) and voice-centric, ie ultra-low cost handsets for emerging and developing markets.
The Euro folks seem to forget that Symbian is and was a consortium-formed company that appears to be independent, creative, and vigorous.
When a company’s management and operations are controlled by multitude of big multinationals such as Nokia, Ericsson, Sony-Ericsson, Panasonic,Siemens/BenQ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian) one would cautiously say that they are not free to be creative but driven mostly by the needs of their owners.
As expected, they will fall short of following Apple’s tracks in the mobile space and many of their bright fellows will jump to the big A in Cupertino’s labs. That should not be a surprise since Google is also absorbing lots of good talent from the old world’s behemoths.
Symbian and their +70% market share, is therefore, not obtained by due merit but from a coerced monopoly by Nokia, Ericsson, Sony-Ericsson, Moto, Panasonic, Siemens/BenQ, and Samsung (let’s call them the Symbian Taskmasters, shall we?). The market share is given blessedly to Symbian and what does that usually do to a hardy little company? Sit around and feel the warm fuzzies and forget that there was Apple working the late nights and early morning dew in their labs about to unleash an “experience” in the mobile space that these slackers have never seen, ever.
So, they have witnessed the brilliant light from the New World and is expanding rapidly both in mindshare of regular folks (compare that to the N95 unattractive “features”) all over the world.
Like I already mentioned, Apple does not need to produce a billion iPhones to conquer this space. A few percentages would do. Nokia and Moto can fight over the low-hanging fruits of the feature-phones. Apple will be happy to have captured the smartphone end of the mobile spectrum.
But we should not dismiss Apple introducing a “featureless” miniscule iPhone in the next few years. The consumers will want them, demand them, and will get them.
Do we see a pattern here? It is the customers that are downright demanding what Apple should produce for them. The iPhone is only the latest example. Albeit, one that the big A designed to fit the majority of the intended consumers.
It is this “consumerism” era that will take Apple to places it had never been. If customers demand such products, they will buy it - in droves. The iPhone was a witness to that.
Take that Nokia! And as for an authoritative third party article about Symbian and the mobile industry, I thus present to you RDM. Read and absorb. Take a big cup of latte for you might want to read some more.
Robo said: The Euro folks seem to forget that Symbian is and was a consortium-formed company
And Robo, considering Nokia controls 47% of Symbian, what happens when the lesser partners feel Apple’s hot breath on the backs of their necks?
I think the Symbian consortium will break down under pressure. leaving it maybe only in the hands one or both of Nokia and Ericsson.
Provided that transition is not too rough, then Symbian should benefit from only one or two owners.
But by then, Microsoft will have rounded up the smaller players, and Apple will have increased its marketshare.
One way the mobile OS wars are like the PC Wars is the hardware uses an advanced OS.
Unlike MP3 players where the OS has been irrelevant so far, while with smartphones Microsoft will be trying to get manufacturers (all those disenchanted by Symbian) to use its OS, with all sorts of sweeteners.
Longer term, I’d expect Symbian and Microsoft to end up with about 30-40% each, Apple around 10% +/- a few percent, and a the rest gaining a percent.
In the near term, Symbian OS will try to invigorate itself now that it has found an inspiration in the iPhone OSX.
While the eye-candy will be easy to assimilate, the architecture down below is much harder to change. This is exactly why MS have a hard time with Windows’ inner plumbing (remember the Registry? It is still there). All MS can do is bolt on API/framework after API/framework (.Net 1, 2, 3?) without really changing the architecture underneath at all.
This is Symbian’s exact problem. The OS isn’t abstracted enough from one hardware architecture to another (say a Dragonball, to PowerPC, to ARM, to Cell, etc.) Symbian is strictly ARM or x86 and applets from one is not readily usable in the other, unlike the Mac’s Universal Binary, for example. When the iPhone decides to use other hardware architecture, say to a Cell, the OS from the Mach kernel is already abstracted that it doesn’t care much about the CPU underneath. It’s our pal HAL that takes care of that.
So, Chris says Symbian will be better off with just one or two of its task-masters. While this scenario lessens the politics of such an arrangement and may invigorate Symbian for the short term, longer term Symbian becomes a Nokia or an Ericsson island and will start losing what made it big in the first place - monopoly. It would then have to compete in the wide open world where neither MS nor Symbian is particularly suited against a strong competitor like Apple.
In 3-5 years time, much of the Smartphone slice of the pie will be cannibalized by the iPhone and its derivatives. MS (sorry Chris) and its Windows Mobile will be yelping back to the desktop where it belongs, not in the mobile space. Windows Mobile (nee, Pocket PC, aka Windows CE) is a horrible mobile OS - witness the Moto Q and HTC TyTN. Good looks with no brains. Sounds like my ex girlfriend, oh wait!
Only RIM’s Blackberry is a worthy competitor in this arena to the iPhone but RIM will concede defeat and crown the iPhone king of smartphones in due time. If not, you will always have the best iPod ever built - so said Steve.