Phone-centric Choice: Symbian From the ground up, Symbian emphasizes strong voice functionality and voice integration with data functions. With Nokia the strongest driver of the Symbian platform--and the leading mobile phone company in the world--it's no surprise that the best-selling smartphones are based on Symbian. Symbian licensees are delivering a wide variety of devices, including phones with keypads, phones using stylus input and phones equipped with Qwerty keyboards.
E-mail-centric Choice: RIM The RIM platform proves that to succeed in the wireless data arena, using a desktop-computing model won't cut it. You must rethink how people work with data, which RIM has done admirably.
General-Purpose Mobile Data Choice: Tie, Microsoft and PalmSource For general-purpose mobile data, PalmSource has produced the best phone PDA ever with its Treo 600, which can leverage the huge installed base of Palm applications. This larger base makes it more likely that there is an off-the-shelf application to address your needs. Microsoft, however has the most powerful and flexible operating environment with its Windows Mobile OS, and strong support in enterprises, especially Microsoft-centric ones. The Microsoft OS also has stronger networking capabilities. Palm and Microsoft have moved their PDA battle to the mobile telephone market, where they now must contend with Symbian.
The Nitty Gritty
Linux The one platform we did not review in detail--due to its market immaturity--is Linux. The most recent version available for embedded computers, such as PDAs and phones, is kernel 2.6. This is a powerful OS with enhanced real-time performance, flexible I/O and support for microcontrollers and large memory models. Despite the fact that it owns essentially no market share, Linux could become a heavyweight, especially as the hardware platforms gain greater computing capability and if handset vendors prefer this platform. Motorola is one of the few vendors supplying smartphones based on Linux. Sharp's Zaurus PDA also uses Linux, though wireless must be added through a modem.
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