 |
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
| Posted: 24 Nov 2009 15:11 | ||
|
Registered User Currently Offline |
Posts: 439 Join Date: Nov 2009 |
|
Microsoft Windows continues to dominate the PC market with a 90 percent market-share stronghold, but when it comes to smart phones, Microsoft is getting beat up worse than a mustachioed villain in a Jackie Chan movie. Windows Mobile has lost nearly a third of its smart phone market share since 2008, research firm Gartner reports. Windows Mobile had 11 percent of the global smart phone market in the third quarter of 2008, according to Gartner, and last quarter Windows Mobile's market share plummeted to 7.9 percent. Meanwhile, Apple's global market share grew from 12.9 percent to 17.1 percent, and RIM saw a rise from 16 percent to 20.8 percent, according to Gartner's figures. It's worth noting Microsoft got a head start with Windows CE, its pocket PC OS, in 1996. Windows CE serves as the foundation for the Windows Mobile OS shipping with some smart phones today. The smart phone OS market, in fact, has existed for several years, and Microsoft was an early leader in the space. But only recently have several additional corporations stepped into this space with their own platforms. Microsoft's biggest problem? One word: iPhone. "It was really the iPhone that came out full-bore for a consumer perspective," said Ross Rubin, an NPD Group consumer technology analyst. "We saw app development focus on consumer applications like social networking and games.... Particularly with Apple's retail presence and advantages in that market, through design and so forth, that's where Microsoft's main challenge lies." Many other technology observers agree that Apple receives credit for sparking the smart phone boom. The 2008 introduction of the App Store enabled third-party developers to sell their own software, further enhancing the capabilities of the iPhone. This proved a workable model, giving 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners the ability to choose from the now 100,000 apps in the App Store. Meanwhile, some developers earned hundreds of thousands of dollars with hot-selling apps. Even if most developers didn't earn that much cash, the success stories helped make Apple's App Store powerfully attractive. Apple's blockbuster success with the iPhone and its App Store compelled other tech giants to offer their own mobile platforms and app stores as well. Google, Nokia, Research In Motion, Palm and others have opened app stores and begun recruiting developers to compete. |
||
