How fast will you be getting a smartphone ? No doubt most people have thought about it, since they have become so popular. Most people buy a new phone every two years. Read on to find out more on what people are going to be seeing on their smartphones in a few years from now.
The world is racing towards the logical culmination of the current mobile trend. By the end of the year 2013 there will more than likely be one active cell phone account for every person on the planet. The United States is quickly becoming a nation where the penetration rate of mobile devices is reaching 100 percent. But if that sounds impressive, the United Arab Emirates has already reached the 200 percent penetration rate for mobile. In other words, there are are two active cell phone accounts for everyone in the Emirates. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and the other five Emirates are the members of this federation. This means some will have three since small children, though counted, will not have two accounts on their own.
With this kind of spread and concentration of the mobile phone, software makers are slightly behind the curve of how to serve them all. The trend is pointing towards leaving the “walled garden” thinking of some mobile operating systems and heading towards open standards. One example is from a company who began their mobile adventure with this type of thinking; Google. Their Android operating system is based on partially open software, but at the present they are rethinking this strategy. They are presently stuck with keeping their Android version 3.0 from prying eyes. Those who would wish to install Android on a device need the permission from Google to do so. The Linux foundation does not require this permission from their users.
For the hard facts, the predictions are that open source mobile platforms Symbian and Android are to be the leaders next year. With the recent turnover of Symbian to third-party companies and out of the hands of Nokia, Android may turn out to be the clear leader of 2012. One of the runner-ups is the Blackberry OS mobile operating system. The closed source iOS platform of Apple is scheduled to take a lower place in importance. For the hard numbers, 49 percent of the mobile operating systems of smartphones will be the partially open source Android. That is practically half of all smartphones. Android is currently being loaded on 350,000 devices daily as of a few weeks ago. That is 486 devices with Android loaded on them by the time you get through with this article.
Look for pure open source software to rake in three times as much money by the year 2013. The Android and Meego mobile operating systems are both based on open source Linux. Microsoft, the traditional enemy of open source software, has announced that they will try to put Windows 8 on smartphones and tablets. If the past is any indication of the future on this, then Nokia is in big trouble with their Microsoft partnership. Luckily, they are keeping Symbian on the back burner.
Not all of the recent popularity of open source software for mobiles is because of the economic crisis. It just happens to be a superior business model. Look for 2014 to be a banner year for open source software on mobile phones. Expect 223 million open source smartphones in the world by that time.
