Sorry Microsoft Corp., but analyst firm Strategy Analytics predicts the handheld device market in the future will not be dominated by any single standard.
“Microsoft will not dominate this category as it has with PCs,” Matthew Checkley, associate consultant with the firm, said in a recent conference. “It will remain a strong contender. Despite Microsoft’s capability to close performance gaps, it’s too late to enter [the real-time application] market.”
The firm’s recent report, “Hand-held Devices: Who Will Win the Standards Battle?” indicates Microsoft is late in introducing an operating system that will allow for real-time applications. This limitation now is excluding the company from successful competition for the smart phone market. Strategy Analytics believes Microsoft is 18 months away from introducing such capabilities.
As such, the future of operating systems for handheld devices-which include smart phones, communicators and personal digital assistants-is likely to be fragmented, said the firm. The EPOC operating system, which offers performance advantages for the kind of real-time applications that will dominate smart phone-type products, will perform well for telecommunications-centric applications, while Windows CE will dominate the PDA market, said the firm.
Other proprietary operating systems also are capable of co-existing in the handheld device market, said Strategy Analytics. This is because most hand-held devices are well supported with applications, software, sales channels and protocols for compatibility. In addition, the cost of developing software for hand-held devices without a standard already is low. Market fragmentation also is possible because powerful companies-namely Microsoft with Windows CE and Symbian with EPOC-back the competing operating systems. They will provide credibility to their respective operating systems, said the firm.
Strategy Analytics predicts that beyond the next two to three years, Java-based applications will come to the forefront, and the issue of operating systems will lose their importance.
Until then, large revenues are at stake in the growing market for handheld devices, said the firm. In fact, Andrew Seybold’s Outlook, a wireless-computing newsletter, indicates that the palmtop computer market is suddenly getting crowded, with some 20 to 30 new entrants in seven emerging product groups due on the market within the next 18 months.
The contenders include 3Com/Palm and its original equipment manufacturers, among them IBM Corp. and Symbol; WinCE, which boasts Casio, Everex and Philips; Symbian, which has evolved from Psion Software; Starfish’s REX products, now owned by Motorola Inc.; FLEX OS, an in-house Motorola rival; Geoworks, with the Nokia Corp. 9000i smart phone as a major entry; and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., which has announced a WinCE smart phone and which may be hedging its bets with a Qualcomm Inc. collaboration on a Palm Pilot and Code Division Multiple Access phone combination.
“There is no doubt in my mind that there is both a perceived and real value to palmtop devices from Palm and the Windows CE vendors,” said Seybold. “The REX device is also of real value to end users. It remains to be seen whether smart phones and combination devices such as a palmtop with a built-in cellular phone will be perceived as having a lot of value.”
