The Performance Advantage Blog
Mobile Platforms
At Airclic we have been focused on rich mobile applications since 2001. During that time there has not been a single platform that has dominated the market much like Microsoft Windows has on the desktop. As a result fragmentation (lots of manufacturers, lots of operating systems, lots of standards) is the norm in the mobile device market. For the buyer or the provider of mobile applications supporting the “right device” is a constantly moving target and usually involves a number of parallel strategies. With platforms such as Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Android, Apple iOS, HP WebOS, Adobe Flash, Oracle Java and HTML5 available right now we don’t expect that to change any time soon but there are some new platforms emerging that appear to likely disrupt the incumbents.
Early in the mobile device market we had just phones, smartphones and rugged mobile computers. The phones were typically Java based, the smartphones were Blackberries and the mobile computers ran Windows Mobile. Everyone was happy playing in their own sandbox and each had a clear target market. Then Apple came along with the iPhone and demonstrated you could potentially meet the needs of all 3 in one device.
Developers followed suit. Not long after Google entered the market with Android, and all of a sudden Microsoft’s and RIM’s “incremental improvement” strategy looked out dated.
Microsoft is now focused on playing catchup to Apple and Google with their Windows Phone 7 OS and has indicated “…the cost of going from good to great is a clean break from the past, and previous Windows Phone content will not run on Windows Phone 7 Series.” This leaves the rugged devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 in a precarious state. Microsoft has now launched a new embedded platform based on Windows 6.5 but based on the lack of details it doesn’t give developers much hope.
With Apple and Google effectively redefining what a mobile device could do RIM and Microsoft were completely caught off guard. For Airclic, who is focused on providing mobile supply chain management applications, Android provides the likely successor. Given the number of manufacturers now supporting that platform plus the recent announcements of a couple of rugged devices based on the platform (i1, Trimble, Pidion) we expect Android to fill the void left by Microsoft and RIM. If Google can get Intermec and Motorola to switch camps we may finally see that fragmentation start to erode and developers might be able to get back to focusing on solving business problems and not technology hurdles.
That leads us to our next topic: business problems and how SaaS fits into the business landscape.
Mobile Platforms
Categories: Airclic, Technology / Technical
