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Posts: 320 | Thanked: 108 times | Joined on Oct 2009
#11
Originally Posted by mdl View Post

1) Android will dominate. It will be installed on a variety of "generic" hardware, just as Windows was installed on every conceivable PC in the 90s. IMO, Android is going to eat up Symbian's market share.

2) Apple will continue to cater to a market that likes highly polished products and tight hardware/software integration. Except that that market is larger now than it was in the 90s.

3) Mobile Linux OSs for hackers will thrive as a geek phenomenon. Perhaps Maemo or Mer will lead the way---or some fork of them. But eventually, I imagine you'll have a lot of people working to install fully-functional Linux distros on handhelds.

Maemo's place in all this seems unclear to me. Perhaps #3. Or perhaps high end Nokia products that occupy a similar niche as the iPhone. Or perhaps Nokia is still big enough internationally to turn Maemo into a genuine competitor for Android. Who knows.

I just realize that my scenario above is exactly the same that has existed in the desktop world, except that Android replaces Windows.
I don’t understand all this enthusiasm for android.
Everybody forget the big list of failed Google proojects. Like the Google Video, Google Catalog Search, Google Notebook, Dodgeball, Jaiku, Google Mashup Editor…
Nokia still has a nice percentage of the market 38% compared to the 2% from android. I think it’s too early to give up.
If Nokia is betting on the enthusiasm of the open source movement to support maemo I guess it can be in big trouble since nobody here give it a vote of confidence.