Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Two operating systems run more than 95 percent of the world's computers, yet dozens of systems are behind the 2.5 billion mobile phones in circulation, a situation that has hampered the growth of new services, industry executives and independent experts say.

Having multiple systems is also time consuming and costly for the operators, which must configure the phones they sell.

Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company in terms of revenue, has been leading a push to limit the number of operating systems, declaring in November that it would eventually sell phones that run only on Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Symbian Series 60 and Linux. For over a year NTT DoCoMo has concentrated on Symbian, in which Nokia has a nearly 50 percent stake, and Linux.

Last year, two-thirds of smart phones sold ran on Symbian's operating system, an increase of about four percentage points from 2005, according to Canalys, a consultant and market research firm based near London. Microsoft was second last year with a 14 percent market share, slightly less than the year before, followed by Research in Motion, which makes the BlackBerry, with 7 percent, and Linux with 6 percent, according to Canalys.

Labels: Mobile