Adrian Kingsley-Hughes recently wrote about how the smartphone OS wars are shaping up and mentioned that Android looks like it is in trouble. The graphic to the left is beginning to tell a story.
I will go further and predict that Android is going to continue to wane and shrink. Where I disagree with you Adrian is that Windows Phone is going to emerge powerfully in ’12 – ’13. The smartphone OS battle is long from being decided, and MSFT is best positioned to pick up share. The numbers may not be great yet, but there are reasons why that will change.
For all the iPhones out there, there are X million blackberry and other handsets that are controlled by corporate IT departments; many companies aren’t even putting corporate data on smartphones yet in any significant way otherwise for security reasons and the fact that apps need to be ported to mobile OSes. Many are still waiting to see what MSFT does.
Once WinPhone comes out on more desirable handsets, corporate IT will offer them as options, and, coupled with its integration with Win 8 server, its xBox control capability(which is becoming a cable box this year in a big way), it is going to become a juggernaut. While (Andriod) ICS is a strong step in the right direction, it is struggling on even the Xoom tablet and Galaxy Nexus with respect to app stability. No one wants to use apps that are unstable. Version Hell is a very real Android phenomenon.
WinPhone desperately needs more storage or seamless cloud storage to offer a combined 64 GB of storage (or 32 GB onboard plus 25 GB SkyDrive which is close) to be a serious competitor. Hopefully Nokia and HTC will wake up and realize they will be better off with better spec’ed WinPhones.
