Smart Phones Go Mainstream

The Windows Mobile platform was first used in personal digital assistants (PDAs), and the first smart phones based on Windows Mobile appeared in 2003. Initially, Microsoft focused on business scenarios, particularly e-mail interoperability with Outlook and Exchange and manageability by corporate IT departments. With this focus, Microsoft hoped to take market share from market-leader Symbian (formerly a consortium, now wholly owned by Nokia) and Research In Motion (RIM), whose BlackBerry devices specialize in e-mail.

In the last two years, smart phones have moved into the consumer mainstream, thanks to hardware advances, such as multitouch screens and more powerful processors, as well as increasingly affordable data plans offered by cellular carriers. According to statistics from Nokia, the worldwide smart phone market grew 37% in 2008, from 117 million to 161 million units.

As the market has grown, competition has intensified. After a successful U.S. launch in 2007, Apple’s iPhone launched worldwide in the third quarter of 2008. This worldwide launch grew Apple’s market share from 2.7% of units sold to end-users in 2007 to 8.2% in 2008, making Apple’s OS X the No. 4 smart phone platform worldwide; in the quarter when the iPhone launched worldwide, Apple’s market share spiked to 12.9%, briefly catapulting it into the No. 3 position ahead of Windows Mobile. (These statistics are from Gartner, which measures sales to end users, or sell-through, instead of shipments to the channel, or sell-in.)