The real war has begun. It’s not all about OEM A vs. OEM B, it’s really all about the operating system that your phone runs. It amazes me that consumers today asks for what Operating System powers a certain smartphone and some of them are really meticulous when it comes to that.
One day i was in a mall in Makati, i was inside this cellphone shop that offers different kind sof smartphones. And i was eavesdropping on one customer nearby asking her friend if this certain android phone runs “Jellybean” or it’s still stuck with “Gingerbread” or “Ice Cream Sandwich” ! Back in the Nokia days, you could only hear those kinds of conversation with die hard phone fanatics! But now, you can hear the same type of conversation almost everywhere!
I totally agree that Marketing from OEM has a lot to do with this and why consumers today are really into technical specifications. People are sensitive enough to judge a certain phone if it’s fast or not, if it’s worthy of a buck or just a dump in the trash.
If that’s the case, i’m not really shocked when Samsung is funding Tizen, even though they already dominate the Android Marketshare. One couldn’t blame Samsung, even Google bought Motorola and even though they already have the Android platform, they are also investing their resources on ChromeOS. Nokia chose Windows Phone because CEO Stephen Elop believes this O.S was untapped and no OEM dominates it back then. They also released an updated Nokia Asha for their line of lower end smartphones. BlackBerry rejected the idea of using an existing mobile O.S and continued to develop and invest with BlackBerry 10. Mozilla believes that the web should be unlocked on Smartphones and there is a really big market in the lower end segment of smartphones, they are now developing Firefox OS, that runs apps on pure HTML5. Jolla, the finnish start-up releases a Sailfish OS smartphone. iOS on the other hand, only powers Apple products like the iPhone, iPad and the iPod touch but still counts an ecosystem for different Apple hardware.
I’m really excited about the outcome of the next generation of Smartphones, as i believe that the only way we could achieve true innovation is when there is competition. Looking forward, we will enjoy a more advanced technology that will help us with our daily lives and that will simplify the things we do today.