1. Operating system manufacturers will soon be market leaders. Google, Microsoft and Apple are all rolling out from desktop to mobile. They have saas applications which will tie the two platforms together. Being a device manufacturer means very little any more, as mobile hardware becomes a commodity and cheap fake hardware becomes a threat in the mass market. Desktop OS vendors have extensive developer communities and an existing user base to leverage. They also have no interest in furthering or supporting other mobile platforms, which is why they developed their own.

2. Apple is able to compete in a certain segment because they have limited hardware platform which they control. This means that they will never be mass-market, but this has never been their strategy. They make eye candy for the top end of the market, using top end hardware for users that can afford it. They don’t do mass market, they don’t to low-cost, they don’t to third world. So they can be a lot more focused on their development and integration between their hardware products. I’d like to see them enter the mass market and see how vocal they remain…

3. Google isn’t tied to hardware and has the greatest saas offering. They just got google voice booted off the iphone because they got there first and Apple can’t compete right now. Their browser runs cross platform and most of their software runs off that. They are device and OS independent, although they are now starting to roll out an OS as well.

4. Microsoft, unlike apple does cater to mass market. They are hardware independent and have the largest developer base. They have some issues with legacy support because they were the first entrants into the desktop market. They have made good steps into the convergence world where most others haven’t: X-box, media center, desktop OS, windows live and windows mobile. Windows live will no doubt be supported on their mobile phones soon, if not already. Their biggest threat is probably from google from an saas and search point of view, as corporates start seeing that you don’t need to have bloated expensive software and hardware to run a business (google is already selling gmail services to corporates as a domain independent solution)

5. Traditional handset manufacturers need to do something fast. They are having their hardware cloned and need to get on the online services bandwagon which OS-based platforms are offering. They also need to get onto the desktop as platforms start to converge. Nokia and Samsung are starting to develop their services – not sure about the rest of them. Everybody has email integration, so I can’t see RIM blowing that trumpet for too much longer… Sony has an amazing gaming and home media platform which functions mostly in isolation. Nokia may buy out Palm to keep their footprint in the US but I’m not sure that’s going to help much long term.

In my mind, Nokia will either need to start providing an OS or work more closely with an OS which doesn’t have a mobile solution. They have bought QT, which has strong relations with KDE and have started the foray into the Linux platform on their mobile devices. They have also signed a deal with Intel which will mean greater co-operation on the Maemo and Moblin platforms between the two.:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/06/new-intelnokia-partnership-a-huge-win-for-mobile-linux.ars
Getting into the netbook market may just be a smart move to try and leapfrog the rest of the competition. I can’t see Symbian being part of this future unfortunately. But they will need to support legacy devices and will most likely take a few years to roll out linux across their range.