Smartphones - The OS Does Matter

There is no precise definition for smartphone but one that works for everybody is a cell phone with a computer operating system. More and more road warriors are leaving their laptop and disconnected PDA behind for short trips because a smartphone can do all the same things that a PDA can and some essential things a laptop can in a smaller package. The new Moto Q is 0.45 inches thin and weighs-in at 4.1 ounces. If you are considering downsizing your personal mobile office or want to provide some input to your IT manager here is one major consideration about choosing a PDA smartphone. The popularity of smart phone operating systems has taken different paths in the USA and the rest of the industrialized world. Symbian OS, an open standard operating system for data enabled mobile phones, is the top seller with a huge 76% smart phone market share worldwide. RIM, which makes Blackberry, has only a 6% worldwide market share, but dominates the USA with 53% of the domestic smart phone market. Palm OS, which has been around since 1996, has about 1/3 of the US market. Talking about operating systems is geeky but the OS is the guts of every PDA smart phone and will, in the end, determine what you can do with your smart phone. RIM has a proprietary OS which is unbeatable for secure email but will not allow you to easily edit a Microsoft Word document. Blackberry is a first class product with one-stop business solutions. RIM has deserved brand loyalty and will continue to do well within the corporate environment. A lone wolf who works with Microsoft Office on his desktop may find himself disadvantaged if RIM OS cannot keep up with the flow of new smart phone applications from other manufacturers. Palm also has a proprietary operating system but appears to be positioning itself to survive in a Windows Mobile world as well. The new generation of Palm Treos comes with Windows Mobile. Smart phone consumers are looking for business applications beyond contact information and email. GPS tracking and GPS navigation are but two. Microsoft already has 20,000 applications for its smart phone platform, and an army of developers to keep new applications coming. Perhaps you would not make a smart phone purchase decision based solely on the operating system, but you do want to be sure that the smart phone OS will not prevent you from integrating with what is already on your desktop. Plus, categorizing smart phones by operating system instead of brand will narrow the choices and help un-complicate the decision making. These are the major brands and the primary operating system of recently introduced smartphones. Some brands may use Symbian OS on older models with ARM processors. Some models are Java enabled. Blackberry - RIM OS Palm - Palm OS, Windows Mobile Nokia - Symbian Motorola - Windows Mobile Hewlett Packard - Windows Mobile Samsung - Windows Mobile Sony-Ericsson -- Symbian HTC (rebranded by cell phone service providers) - Windows Mobile (C) 2006. Peter Boston. What you need to know before buying a GPS cell phone or handheld GPS unit . Your GPS information resource.