Can Any Smartphone Platform Overcome the Android/iOS Duopoly?

Nerval's Lobster writes "The company formerly known as Research In Motion—which decided to cut right to the proverbial chase and rename itself 'BlackBerry'—launched its much-anticipated BlackBerry 10 operating system at a high-profile event in New York City Jan. 30. Meanwhile, Microsoft is still dumping tons of money and effort into Windows Phone. But can either smartphone OS — or another player, for that matter — successfully challenge Apple iOS and Google Android, which one research firm estimated as running on 92 percent of smartphones shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012? What would it take for any company to launch that sort of successful effort?"

Re:Lots of Money

[Un pobre guey]

Microsoft will not win this time. If they continue to waste money on their phones, they will die an ignominious death. They need to move on to bigger and better things, like the massive robotic invasion that's not even ten years away.

Re:No

[Un pobre guey]

Their only hope is for current Android/iOS devices to age out and become dull and boring, and then come up with something radically new. Google Glasses are a possibility, because they change the paradigm from a phone handset or a tablet to something radically different but with the same functionality of the phones plus a whole lot more. Microsoft would have to at least play catchup with Google, and I would bet a few bucks that Apple already has a few secret prototypes. If they don't, then they too are roadkill.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:firefox or ubuntu

[errandum]

The problem with ubuntu (and any new mobile OS in the past few years) is that they do not innovate, they simply copy and add a few gimmicks.

Developer tools need to be available WAY before the launch. They need to be free. Pay developers for startup apps. Make an office suit, a few games, etc. and make them freely available for everyone. Make them run android binaries (last I've heard, the dalvik code is open source). See those cloud services others charge for? Make them free.

Let your hardware partners go crazy. Don't impose guidelines, just make sure all binaries will run. The rest, leave it to them so they are not all clones of one another (like windows phones).

Be ready to spend a few millions without return of investment.

And above all, don't try to keep your competition out, invite them in. Google develops for iOS and with that they give out a good company image to iOS users. Maybe those that love the new Maps app will want to get it on android without the limitations. Having a full set of google services would be a plus.

Analyst's opinion here

[whoever57]

Did the submitter read this blog posting from an analyst first? [blogs.com]

Windows Phone

[DogDude]

I just got my second Windows Phone today. I really like it. I don't care about all of the "Apps" because it does everything I need right out of the box. I think that a well integrated OS like Windows Phone 8.0 doesn't need to rely on millions of "apps" to be able to sway customers.

Re:I'd expect that...

[postbigbang]

I take encouragement that iOS is a combo of Windows CE and older Blackberry functionality that was done well. Schmidt was on Apple's board when they were conceiving iOS, and he took what he discovered and grafted it onto Android. These have all been incremental repackaging of stuff. BB/RIM has a weak engineering team, but good ideas, hobbled by not making vast ecosystems out of content, apps (especially games), and so forth. They focused on business. In a way, that much hasn't changed, but they're trying to break open the cartels behind iTunes and G+Stuff.

Someone will come along and one-up the one-uppers. It's only a matter of time. Whether it's a Boot2Gecko/Mozilla, Ubuntu in the flesh, Chinese hack of Android, it'll be something. Windows 8 faces a lot of animosity, so it's a "dark horse" in my mind.

All this will pass. Everyone will try to get you to buy new hardware, change your sub & carrier, do subscription models, and so forth. New combos will be found. Maybe BB will survive and flourish. The OP seems like he/she's asking a baited question.

Re:Why just Smartphones?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what I want. My smartphone should be able to easily dock into my car and transfer my maps, media, text messages (to voice), call functions, etc to the car's display and audio easily. I know there's a level of that possible now, but nothing as simple as dock and forget. I should then be able to come home, plug my phone into a dock and have my media easily available, and if i have a landline style phone, my calls should just transfer to that while docked. Same plan with an office. Stop building on the phone, but make the phone the brain of a larger operation... Lot's of these things are already doable, just no easy, universal solution. All these years after Android too, I figured someone would have picked up on this and started it up.