While the platforms are becoming portable,pervasive and powerful each day, how do you ensure you have zeroed in on the best platform for your devices?
Today a developer who wants to develop an end-user application from scratch thinks targeting 3 screens i.e. the PC (whether be it a desktop/laptop/netbook), the functionally-closed tablet and the portability-oriented smartphone. This consideration is a must, because users use each of these in varying capacities and none of these segments are going to vanish anytime in the near future. So lets ponder upon various vendors : -
Aspirational for Consumers, Expensive for Enterprises and highly paying for Developers
On the desktop it has the formidable MacOS, which has opened up to the Intel architecture over the last few years. On the consumer front, owners of Apple devices tend to buy more of other Apple devices to complement their experience in a most hassle-free manner. From a developer's perspective, iOS is big money. This will increase even further after the launch of mini-iPad. Apple currently wins hands down here on the consumer-focused applications for the tablet (iPad) and the smartphone (iPhone) owing to it's sheer size of the marketplace. Things are not as good on the enterprise applications front though, where there is a lot more room for improvement. Some say that Apple does not have enough of a foothold yet owing to the current pricing, which actually is what makes an Apple product aspirational.
Consistent Experience Across Devices Could Make it a Game-Changer
On the PC as well as on the tablet, Windows 8 promises to offer a seamless and consistent experience. given the current rumours about the pricing of the Surface tablets, this has the potential to be a game-changer. It is worth keeping in mind though that on the tablets front, you have the option of Windows RT as well, which although is based on the ARM architecture and offers exceptional battery life, will NOT be able to run native desktop applications which you have been using so far on the Wintel architecture. Windows Phone 8 appears to remove several of the main points (such as support for expandable storage) that consumers complained about with Windows Phone 7 (and even mango for that matter).
Beyond any scope of doubt, in the enterprise, many legacy applications even today require Windows. Managing your ecosystem of devices is one aspect where Microsoft has both the cake as well as the icing. Microsoft also has another ace up it's sleeve by offering a consistent Office (including SharePoint) experience across all 3 devices, so that users need no longer worry about compatibility issues in EDI. However, does it have the potential to stand the test of time? Thinkers says that "During the Microsoft era, there was a time when software dictated what hardware you need to have. Now, with BYOD, we are seeing a shift in this inclination". Since neither Windows 8 (including it's RT variant) nor Windows Phone 8 has reached the masses yet, time will be the best judge.
Too Many Android Variants Increase Management Complexity Across devices
There really isn't a full-fledged mainstream PC offering from Google, irrespective of the fact that on your own desktop, you probably visit Google's homepage more number of times than clicking on the start button of your pre-Windows 8 PC. However, on August 7,2012 , the US PTO awarded a patent (number 8239662) to Google for what appears to be Chrome OS, since the abstract of the patent largely revolves around a cloud OS . It is interesting to note that as far as a cloud OS for client PCs is concerned, Google was't the first to come up with a working concept in this area. In fact the Chrome OS itself was announced after the application for the patent was filed and the OS is yet to take off among the masses inspite of a handful of devices from OEMs. There are even speculations that with the recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Google may be going for a first-party device. It is even possible to install and run Android natively (without emulation) on certain netbooks, especially the Asus Eee PC range. However, the popularity of Android is due to penetration of tablets and smartphones at multiple price points. This also means that the extremely wide range of devices having different versions of the Android operating system (as well as a different set of hardware sepcifications) make the platform a nightmare for developers who want to target multiple versions of Android, since fragmentation is too high and OS updates reach different people in different regions at different times. And here not many cases are observed that someone buying an Android tablet would buy a Android phone as well (or vice versa).
RESEARCH IN MOTION : The BLACKBERRY Still Dominates in Push Mail, But The Platform Is Gradually Loosing Out To Competitors.
No desktop offering here, so this cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution for your business. On the tablets front, the PlayBook, although well built and good-looking, was poor on bundled software until the 2.0 update. It was based on the OMAP architecture. However, what could have been a worthy competitor to the likes of Kindle seems to have taken a beating because of RIM's deteriorating brand perception.
The recent debacles on this platform (such as server outages) have caused enterprises to look beyong BlackBerry for their communication needs. Thinkers says "If RIM were to deploy an Android device with their own customizations on top of it, they would revive the company and be back in business. They would not be in the state which they are today. Their strength of providing not just push mail but enterprise security, combined with the openness of Android's platform, holds lot of value. The next best thing for them would be to offer their solution as SaaS to become independent of the devices".
However, others think that RIM should take action as soon as possible they are not optimistic about it actually happening though.
Dominate Phone Brand, But Weak Elsewhere
Aside from the Maemo/Meego project, Nokia has no significant offering for the PC. It also has stopped releasing new versions of what it used to call it's 'Internet Tablets' running on Maemo. In terms of sheer numbers and current market share, Nokia still dominates in India (as well as the world), thanks to it's wide range of feature phones (many of which are legacy now although still used and their users are hesitant to migrate given Nokia's proven reliability as far as the hardware is concerned).
No PC offering here too. And as far as the Galaxy tablets are concerned, they run on Android which is not Samsung's own platform.
However, for phones, there is Samsung's not-so-popular 'Bada' platform, which, according to a recent report, has an equivalent amount of market share as compared to Windows Phone.
