Goodness, things have been getting awfully Nokia in here today (see below this post). But though Nokia and its Symbian S60 platform (which is also used in Samsung and Panasonic handsets) is pretty ubiquitous right now, it might not enjoy such a deep level of market penetration in the future.
Analyst firm ABI Research has just released a report which indicates that as much as 20-percent of mid to high-end mobile devices will be Linux-based by 2013. According to Stuart Carlaw, vice president of ABI Research, the driving factor will be cost:
“Linux OS solutions will be far more cost-effective than incumbent solutions, even when silicon requirements are taken into account, given that a fuller application layer will be included in the standard package and that the burden of customization falls mostly on the independent software vendor”
Sounds compelling from a manufacturing perspective as the low cost of software development could help to bring hardware prices down. Even so, 20% is an awful lot of phones against today’s uptake of Linux based OSs. Mind you if it’s good enough for Android…
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