I have previously written about OpenMoko. It seems now that it was the drop before the deluge. Google’s Android appears to have gained good traction with Sprint and T-Mobile joining the Open Handset Alliance, with Dell rumored (update) to be planning an Android-based phone, and with Verizon expressing lukewarm support. Nokia has for some time sponsored open source handset software through Maemo.org, but this week it upped the ante with its acquisition of TrollTech. Trolltech is responsible for Qtopia, a semi-open source platform used in Linux-based phones. That makes four credible Linux-based mobile phone software platforms. Update: Make that five – the LiMo Foundation is a consortium of carriers (including NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone), phone makers (including Samsung, Motorola and LG) and others “dedicated to creating the first truly open, hardware-independent, Linux-based operating system for mobile devices.”
But a phone doesn’t have to be open-source to be an open application platform, and this category is just as vigorous, but better established. Nokia’s Symbian phones have always been open to an extent – there are over 2 million developers registered in Nokia’s developer organization, Forum Nokia. Then we have Microsoft. Microsoft claims that sales of Windows Mobile phones are set to double year-on-year, to 20 million units. Windows Mobile provides a sufficiently open application environment that applications like Skype run on it. The iPhone is not yet officially an open application environment, but there is still a healthy slate of applications from third parties for those with the stomach to take the unofficial route. This is scheduled to change in February when the open-ness goes official with the release of Apple’s SDK for the iPhone. So that’s three major open application environments for smart phones.
2008 is also the year that Wi-Fi phones will come into their own. The dam broke with the iPhone. Wi-Fi on the iPhone raises the bar for all the other smart phones, making Wi-Fi a baseline checklist item for the next generation of smart phones. Previously mobile network operators were fearful that Wi-Fi in a phone would divert traffic from their data networks. This fear led, for example, to AT&T’s removal of Wi-Fi from their version of the Nokia E61. But there is now new evidence. At last week’s IT Expo East I heard an unsubstantiated report that 60% of wireless data usage in December was by 2% of the phones: iPhones. If this is even partly true, it would demonstrate that a web-friendly phone will drive traffic on the cellular data network even when it has Wi-Fi.