The Old OS Pangs, Only with Mobile Devices Now

Jim Machi : Industry Insight
Jim Machi

The Old OS Pangs, Only with Mobile Devices Now

In yesterday's blog about CTIA, I mentioned that the iPhone hysteria has disappeared. And that got me to thinking about the developers out there. With different Smartphone Operating Systems, what's a Smartphone developer to do? I remember back in my UNIX days when I'd talk to application vendors about porting to UNIX. They'd talk about whether to port to SCO Unix, AT&T Unix, or Solaris and since I was visiting, I'd state the case to port to the UNIX system that I was working for. Then one year I went in and they'd say only one UNIX, and then Windows NT. And then it was soon only Windows NT and maybe Linux. There were too many choices to make, and the developers needed to ride a horse. They saw the power of a standardized OS. That's when I knew it was time to leave and hence started my career at Dialogic. 
 
But it gets me thinking about today. There are many choices today with Apple, Microsoft, Palm, Linux, Symbian and Blackberry. It seems to me that that's similar to what I described above, and some kind of consolidation will be occurring within 2 years. I don't predict what will happen, only that it seems to need to happen. I'll revisit this as some point in the future.

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