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A race to the top of Mount Mobile

While Symbian and J2ME continue to dominate the Indian mobile platform arena, others are not too far behind, writes Nivedan Prakash

“There can be only one!” That was the poster line for Highlander. In the world of mobile phones, however, that is not the case. Here diversity is the name of the game with Java, Symbian, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Linux-based mobile OSs all having carved out their own niche.

The market has evolved from limited device configurations to smartphones at the upper end of the spectrum. Although platform developers are working towards full-fledged application deployment environments, the massive diversity in handset technology makes it difficult to roll out a one-size-fits-all application.

Sumeet Gugnani, Director-Mobile Communications Business, Microsoft India, said, “Demand for smartphones is rising across all user segments. Consumers are looking for a single device, which can take care of all their needs. The operating system of a smartphone plays an important role in satisfying the need for accessible information 24x7.”

The 800-pound gorilla of the smartphone world is Symbian, which is present on Nokia and Sony Ericsson smartphones. Microsoft has Windows Mobile smartphones based on which OS are available from many manufacturers. Google’s Android platform is yet to come of age though it shows much promise. Linux-based smartphones also exist.

Overall performance of mobile platforms

Each mobile platform has its own adherents and strengths. Symbian has a good feature set and offers robust mobile e-mail software. Java is good for gaming and application developers in J2ME are relatively easy to find. Windows Mobile has many third-party applications, as do Java and Symbian, available to enhance the end-user experience. Open source platforms often ship with good Personal Information Management (PIM), Web browsers, e-mail clients and MS Office-compatible document viewers. Platforms like Brew help in developing a number of high quality applications owing to the flexibility and high performance capability of the OS.

Symbian leads the smartphone segment worldwide with a market share of about 60%. Microsoft (11%), RIM BlackBerry (11%), Brew (10%), iPhone (5%), Linux and other platforms (3%), are the other popular platforms.

According to Anshul Gupta, Principal Analyst, Gartner, “Symbian is the leader in the mobile platform segment. In the first quarter of this year, it had a market share of 57% globally followed by RIM BlackBerry, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and Linux. Symbian is the leader in India, APAC and Europe as well. I believe it will hold its position in India because of Nokia’s support.”

Debasis Chatterji, Director-NetXcell, commented, “Symbian is slowly catching on due to the fact that it lets you create powerful applications. These are, however, limited to Symbian phones, which do not occupy more than 15% of the Indian market. Windows Mobile is popular [with companies pushing applications like sales force automation, CRM and enterprise connectivity to smartphones in the hands of their end-users].”

Rohan Deshpande, Associate Director-Wireless Technology, Hungama Mobile, pointed out that Symbian is a native platform of which Nokia is the principal user while CDMA network providers are the only ones using BREW. “Windows Mobile is being incorporated in many handheld and high-end phones being introduced in the market, while open source platforms are nascent and yet to catch on,” added Deshpande.

“Things are set to change as smartphone usage is spreading, with Symbian recently crossing 200 million implementations. Windows Mobile and Blackberry (14 million) are trying to catch up fast. The iPhone recently revolutionized the mobile market in many ways. That said when we look at 3 billion plus consumers these numbers are quite small,” added Rahul Pandey, Head, Mobile 18.

Shashikant Chaudhary, VP-Mobile Business Unit, GlobalLogic, pointed out, “Although Symbian backed by Nokia has the largest share in most markets worldwide, and it trails other companies in the North American market. This market, though smaller [than the combined markets of Asia and Europe where Symbian dominates], has greater visibility. In Japan, Symbian is strong due to its relationship with NTT DoCoMo. Windows CE along with Windows Mobile is widespread in Asia. Linux is strongest in China where Motorola uses it, and in Japan DoCoMo uses it. The Apple iPhone and the RIM BlackBerry (originally designed for business users) are making their mark worldwide. BREW backed by Qualcomm, and widely accepted by CDMA operators, has been chosen by 24 operators worldwide including Verizon, Virgin Mobile, Reliance, etc.”

Uniqueness of these platforms

Each of these platforms provides tools to applications developers so that they can develop robust and varied mobile applications.

Blackberry has been a standout performer across the world for its security and e-mail capabilities. Its unique feature is that e-mail is pushed to handsets rather than the usual model where the user has to pull e-mail down to his device. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server is the back-end software that takes care of this. This platform also has better support for e-mail attachments and better battery life. The BlackBerry is secure, integrates well with other platforms, is available globally from several carriers, is easy to manage, and has a small form-factor with an easy-to-use keyboard.

Symbian has helped in the adoption of newer technologies into existing markets. It has an architecture that lets manufacturers plug-in any new technology off-hand and its licensing system is open. Symbian is a robust platform for advanced 2G, 2.5G and 3G mobile phones offering best-in-class security comparable to any open mobile operating system and designed to meet stringent security requirements from network operators, handset manufacturers and enterprises. Symbian provides standardized support for digital TV SQL database and location-based services (LBS) are anticipated to help build mass-market acceptance. With Symbian, one gets access to a handset’s native file system, which is not always the case with many other platforms.

Java is available on the majority of handsets. J2ME is lightweight and Java applications are simple to build and run.

Windows Mobile is feature rich. It is essentially Microsoft’s attempt to bring the Windows UI to a mobile platform. Perhaps more manufacturers have adopted Windows Mobile on some model or the other than any other mobile platform other than J2ME. Phone manufactures like HTC, Motorola Q, Palm Treo, HP, iMate, Samsung and ASUS all sell cell phones powered by Windows Mobile. Moreover, there is with a larger developer community that provides third-party applications for this platform.

Mobile Linux is relatively inexpensive. Its flexible modular architecture and ability to scale smoothly to almost any kind of hardware makes it a good fit for industrial handhelds and telematics applications. Linux is flexible in terms of adapting to different kinds of hardware.

Mahmood Kalantar, Director-Business Development, Mobile Software Sales and Marketing, Nokia APAC, said, “An open platform is indeed a platform, not a service as such. It is a means to introduce innovative and better software in a quicker and more efficient manner. Especially in the area of Internet services and multimedia, open platforms can provide a playing field that boosts innovation and allows different people and companies to add value to the platform. Expect better Internet interoperability, location-aware services, music, etc.”

BREW is more standard and portable across devices compared to MIDP. As it runs directly on top of the hardware layer, application execution is fast. The BREW API is consistent across supported handsets. Handset manufacturers can add new features and fix bugs over-the-air to already deployed Brew handsets by using BREW extensions.

Talking about one of the latest platforms on the block, Moblin, Narendra Bhandari, Director-Software and Solutions Group, Intel APAC, said, “Moblin simplifies and unifies the software development effort for Intel-based mobile and Internet-centric platforms. Through it, developers can create applications that run on multiple Intel-based platforms with segment-specific UI optimizations and do not require a full port per segment. In addition, Moblin is built with commonly used open source components, and this allows existing open source applications on Intel architecture based PCs and laptops to run with minimal UI optimizations on new devices.”

Mobile platforms in India

As per market reports, India is the world’s fastest-growing mobile market and is the second largest market in the world, trailing only China. As of March 2008, India had a 261 million strong wireless subscriber base. As far as mobile platforms are concerned, VAS providers in the country are porting applications across various platforms.

Chaudhary stated, “India is a price competitive market where a large portion of the population (around 45%) uses low-cost handsets (Java or BREW), but people are increasingly going in for smartphones (Windows Mobile, Symbian) with greater processing power and available memory.”

“VAS services contribute approximately 7% of total wireless telecom revenues for Indian operators. SMS, IVR and WAP are the delivery mechanisms for VAS services. VAS providers target almost all platforms as features such as WAP and SMS (contributing about 55% of VAS revenue) are available on most platforms today. Although the focus remains on providing the most common VAS services based on SMS, IVR and WAP portals, the demand for applications like e-mail, mobile music, stocks tracking is increasing as well,” added Chaudhary.

Deshpande commented, “From the CDMA perspective, BREW continues to hold the lead and Nokia is backing up its Symbian platform in the GSM handset markets. From an Indian market perspective, Nokia remains the market leader by a distance and technologies and platforms introduced by it will definitely be of importance. However, with the introduction of the iPhone, there is a possibility of a change in the near term.”

Then there is Android, which could put a cat among the pigeons. It could work in India as it is open source and there is a huge developer base in India that can use it to their advantage. Being open source also makes it low cost and hence handset manufacturers can price their products lower than those running other platforms. Whether they will choose to do so is another matter. Early indications are that Android is feature-rich and flexible.

The Indian VAS market has witnessed exponential growth. In order to cater to every segment, most Indian VAS companies have strategies in place for consumers on all platforms. Currently the majority work happens on MIDP/Java, BREW and Symbian as those cover the bulk of VAS consumption in India.

Bhandari said, “The market for mobile phones and handheld devices is huge and is ready for applications which maximize the mobile Internet experience. Carriers also benefit from offering VAS, and the most common open platforms which are open and support multiple OS choices are clearly expected to gain acceptance over time.”

“Windows Mobile has seen tremendous growth in India. Since its launch in India, it has crossed a million users in less than 15 months and we are targeting two million users by the end of June 2008,” added Gugnani.

Latest updates and future directions

• BREW: BREW’S future includes Flash integration and the ability to run widgets created with Qualcomm’s Plaza initiative.
• Symbian: Symbian SQL and an advanced Location Based Services (LBS) architecture are two new technologies will provide impetus to the development of LBS and mass data handling applications. Symbian is working on technology called Freeway to give phones the ability to move seamlessly between wireless networks, like Wi-Fi and cell networks like 3G and 4G. “The latest announcement from Symbian has been version 9.5 for enhancing the data services,” said Pandey.
• J2ME: Sun has released its Lightweight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) for Java ME that provides a UI API with support for animations, buttons, forms, fonts, layout managers, scrolling and tabs, transitions, styles and themes. “The MIDP platform is currently reviewing specs for MIDP3 which is set the replace the existing MIDP2 with more functional capabilities as well as backward compatibility with MIDP2. Blackberry is coming up with a new range of handsets (Bold Series),” said Pandey.
• Windows Mobile: Windows Mobile 7 will emphasize the use of touch on devices, as well as motion gestures.
• Android: The mobility, flexibility and robustness of open source technologies baked into the platform make it powerful. Developers will be able to modify core elements of the interface and come out with replacements for the basic building blocks such as the address book that ship with Android. Even the look of the home-screen widgets will be customizable. “Android had its first prototype unveiling at the Mobile World Congress and later in 2008 more companies will follow suit [with their own prototypes and phones running Android],” added Pandey.
• iPhone: The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push e-mail, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe. The iPhone’s groundbreaking multi-touch user interface, animation technology, large storage, built-in three-axis accelerometer and geographical location technology help deliver innovative mobile applications.

Deshpande said, “With the arrival of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platform this year, the mobile platforms scene is heating up. In particular, Microsoft’s renewed focus on mobility places it in good stead with the competition. The future will be bright for the one that rises to the competition.”

“We expect that open source will play a bigger role in the development of interesting Nokia products. As the technology matures, we will feel confident to introduce more of it in our products. We use open source extensively in our top of the line devices (e.g. Linux based Internet tablet, the N810). In S60 devices, we use open source in various places (e.g. the browser),” added Kalantar.

Finally, as the capabilities of basic phones increase, Nokia expects to see more open source based solutions there, as well. The main point, according to Kalantar, is the fact that the end-user comes first. Open source is a means to serve customers, not a goal as such.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com