Windows Mobile Possible 28% Loss of Market Share

Nov 17, 2009

According to a current Gartner study, Windows Mobile has lost 28% of the mobile market share over the last year. Winners at first are Apple and Blackberry, but open source systems are gaining over the long run.

As ZDNet reports, based on a Gartner study, Windows Mobile lost nearly a third of the share of the mobile phone market from 2008 Q3 to 2009 Q3 and is dead last among the major players at just 8%. One reason for the breakdown is Microsoft's delayed release of Windows Mobile 6.5, while still not delivering what most mobile phone users are demanding, such as touchscreens. According to Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza, version 6.5 is "not a major improvement" over its predecessors. A recent Gartner press release has further prognostications.

Symbian, having since become an open source operating system, also lost market share by 10% over the two third quarters, going from 50% to 45%. The more closed environments iPhone and RIM's Blackberry, on the other hand, have gained share.

From the open source perspective, however, 2009 has been a watershed year in the mobile phone market. Android mobile phones gained 4%, even though at the time of the study only two devices had Android. Even the free Palm WebOS has passed the 1% mark.

Gartner analysts had predicted the end of Windows Mobile earlier this year: they guessed by 2015 that there would be four remaining players in the field, Android, Symbian, Mac OS and Blackberry.

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Comments

  • Not surprising...

    This really isn't very surprising and I'm surprised it's taken so long. Windows Mobile is an operating system designed for PDAs with phone features slapped on top. I've always found it extremely clunky and unintuitive as a phone OS. They should have done a complete redesign of the interface when they switched it over to smartphones instead of just throwing a dialing app on top and shoving it down peoples throats.

  • We should be looking at the open source versions

    We should be only looking at open source operating systems for these phones. Google has the right idea. There are so many issues out there with the proprietary phones like Windows Mobile and the Apple iPhone. For instance, the iPhone needs to be hacked in order to install some apps that aren't supported by Apple. Instead of the vendor having to be in constant control of the software, the should run open source operating systems allowing the end users more freedom in what apps they want to install/write on their own.
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