India Broadband Forum

Swifty

The most common operating systems (OS) used in smartphones

Symbian OS from Symbian Ltd. (46.6% Market Share Sales Q3 2008 )

Symbian has the largest share in most markets worldwide, but lags behind other companies in the relatively small but highly visible North American market.This matches the success of its owner and largest customer, Nokia, in all markets except Japan. Nokia itself enjoys 52.9% of the smartphone market.In Japan Symbian is strong due to a relationship with NTT DoCoMo, with only one of the 44 Symbian handsets released in Japan coming from Nokia.It is used by many major handset manufacturers, including BenQ, LG, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. Various implementations of user interfaces on top of Symbian (most notable being UIQ and Nokia's own S60) are incompatible, which along with the requirement that applications running on mobile phones be signed is hindering the potential for a truly widely accepted mobile application platform. It has received some adverse press attention due to virus threats (namely trojan horses).



iPhone OS from Apple Inc. (17.3% Market Share Sales Q3 2008)

The iPhone and iPod Touch use an operating system called iPhone OS, which is derived from Mac OS X. Third party applications were not officially supported until the release of iPhone OS 2.0 on July 11th 2008. Before this,"jailbreaking" allowed third party applications to be installed, and this method is still available.


BlackBerry OS from RIM (15.2% Market Share Sales Q3 2008)

This OS is focused on easy operation and was originally designed for business. Recently it has seen a surge in third-party applications and has been improved to offer full multimedia support.


Windows Mobile from Microsoft (13.6% Market Share Sales Q3 2008)

The Windows CE operating system and Windows Mobile middleware are widely spread in Asia
Improved variants of this operating system, Windows Mobile 6 Professional (for touch screen devices) and Windows Mobile 6 Standard, were unveiled in February 2007. Current release is Windows Mobile version 6.5


Linux operating system (5.1% Market Share Sales Q3 2008)

Linux is strongest in China where it is used by Motorola, and in Japan, used by DoCoMo. Rather than being a platform in its own right, Linux is used as a basis for a number of different platforms developed by several vendors, including Motorola and TrollTech, which are mostly incompatible.The recently released webOS, considered the successor to Palm OS, is also linux based. Another platform based on Linux and named LiMo is being developed by Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic, Samsung, and Vodafone.



Palm OS developed by PalmSource (now a subsidiary of ACCESS)

PalmSource traditionally used its own platform developed by Palm Inc. Access Linux Platform (ALP) is an improvement that was planned to be launched in the first half of 2007. It will use technical specifications from the Linux Phone Standards Forum. The Access Linux Platform will include an emulation layer to support applications developed for Palm-based devices.


Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW)

BREW was developed in the USA by Qualcomm, Inc and is popular in North America and Japan . BREW is a mobile application development platform and end-to-end content delivery ecosystem. BREW has recently gained a foothold in Europe via the 3 Skypephones offered by network 3.



Android promoted by Open Handset Alliance and licensed by Google(Released 22 Oct 2008)

Android, which was developed by Google. Android was developed as a platform that could be run on many devices. Android has yet to own even a small part of the smartphone market.
Google is promoting APIs to Google's services, hence disclosing a distinct marketing strategy..
The Android OS is currently only on the HTC Dream (G1), running on T-Mobile USA's network
Sprint also plans to sell an Android powered phone sometime in 2009.

mickey

Whats that O's present in cheap chinese handsets and those of spice?thats linux?

strider

Symbian rocks.

Swifty

its local OS like local brands!

mickey

i know that its local. But still i find it in too many phones. Pls someone throw some light on it. Its on my Fathers old reliance Lg phone. Its in my freak spice music set. Its in my chinese handset. Wtf is it?

strider

There are two versions, there mite be more, one is symbian version and the other is the standard version, both chinese of course!

just4kix

Chinese are quite capable of duplicating Symbian and other OS. The Chinese mobiles may be having the pirated versions. Personally I do not know, never having owned a Chinese mobile.

mickey

chinese tv phone, i have it. I recently purchased it from LP market delhi. The tv despite the fact is terrestrial. And cable tv cant be viewed on it. But i like its touch screen and looks like genuine touch dopod. Phone is very heavy and is a gem,when you are travelling and you take it out and see (show others actually with pride)the tv and news and programs on it. Chinese are $hit makers. I don know what do they eat to make cheap stuffs like these.

Swifty

But why you interested in that OS!
if you ask something about i posted above i know something about them!
specially about Linux for mobile!

mickey

oh nothing so special. Actually i asked because i saw that bloody o's in almost phones of all non popular or local or chinese brands.thats why i asked. Linux for mobile-ex.

Swifty

i see few months ago chinese makes I-Phones Duplicate with I-Phone OS not that much stable but they have done!

mickey

yeah . I too saw. Their phone o's are less stable.but they are good cloners.

Swifty

Damn! they are Good cloners!
Which one you like most in above if you used?
all users who reading this please reply!

strider

good cloners but crap phone.

Swifty

Android Capturing market now & giving competition to windows Mobiles!

strider

Android has still far to go. Its user app are very less. WM are on the decline, i guess.

Swifty

Windows of mobile is much stable than that of PC!
it get award of Best mobile OS among all!
symbain also not stable comparing to windows!

and about android you will see in near future what it does

strider

Yes, its stable i guess. Even Acer is going to launch WM phones.

Swifty

Ya windows Mobile launched by every mobile company!
Now android used by motorola, Sony Erricson, Samsung even i heard LG also releasing Android Phone!

strider

People will buy what they like. Though im a nokia fan, but would like to see how android opens up in the next 6 months.