A Guide To The Smartphone Platform War
This is turning into quite the debate — which one of the emerging smartphone platforms will you support? The iPhone? Or, one of its competitors, like Windows Mobile, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, Google’s Android, Symbian, or the upcoming Palm (NSDQ: PALM) webOS? The conversations are really heating up. Two weeks ago, we asked if you could build a large business by supporting only one platform, like the iPhone. Then, last week, we wrote about one person’s perspective on how Silicon Valley is gaga over the iPhone. That, spurred a response by Mike Rowehl, who wrote on his blog that he was “flabbergasted that the conversation could even be taking place. How can anyone seriously say ‘well, you
I can't get why transitioning to open-source is in cons?
You would understand if you read the whole post, instead of this so-called "snapshot." It isn't that Nokia is relying on open source per se, but the way they are doing it.
James Fisher from Sprint here. Sprint is running out of capital? Let me provide some clarification â have we lost customers in recent quarters? â Yes. Are we in some kind of financial straights that would impact a highly successful roll-out of the Palm Pre? — Not at all. We have the ability to pay all debt due through 2010, and financial analysts have echoed one another with reports that we have established a position of financial stability in a difficult economic environment. In 2008, the company achieved tremendous success in addressing core challenges with customer care, marketing and network perception, and our advances in those areas have been confirmed repeatedly by external third parties, including J.D. Power and Associates. The roll-out of the Pre in the first half of this year is another important element in our efforts to bring excitement and value to our customers as we rebuild our business, and we have the resources, enthusiasm and everything else it takes to make the Pre a winner.
Hi Shaio, I would also add that it's just difficult to go through a transition at all, it's not so much that they've picked open source. And, James, we aren't talking about Sprint. We are talking about Palm here, so it's the one that has limited capital resources.
Thanks,
Tricia
Hi,
Although I understand the root of this debate and it's a really valid point, I keep coming back to the same point over and over: what the consumer wants.
With the possible exception of the iPhone, consumers don't really care what platform apps are developed on. They simply want, and have the right to get, apps on their phone. Fragmentation and complexity is an industry problem we all have to deal with and developers will no doubt have to prioritize platforms but choosing to develop on just one platform is like Pepsi saying they are just going to sell product to one supermarket: you miss a ton of opportunity.
Developers no doubt have to look at where they are most likely to monetize quickly and easily and that answer today is probably iPhone (though developer blogs rage at the length it takes to actually get paid these days). Blackberry is likely going to be a good option too considering the size of its installed base and the type of user that are Rim customers. My 3rd bet would be Java. Although it's clunky and a pain at times given handset fragmentation, there is no denying the scale you can reach globally with java. Payment is difficult if your model depends on D2C transactions but if you can monetize your business model some other way (like Opera mini for example) and distribute your app for free than you won't find greater scale anywhere around.
then it's just a question of finding good distribution ;)
cheers
Patrick Mork
GetJar
@James Fisher, I think they meant that Palm is running out of capital.
Perhaps they are referring to Palm running out of capital, but the original reporting done by Walt Mossberg from which this was taken referred directly (incorrectly) to Sprint as "hemorrhaging as well." In the case above, my high school English teacher would have sought a more clear sentence construction.