Mobile OSs
While Microsoft dominates the computer desktop, there is much more competition among mobile phone operating systems. Two other companies are duking it out with Microsoft for leadership in this market, and they have managed to push it into third place. Table 10.1 shows the names of their systems for different classes of device.
| Device/Company | Symbian | Microsoft | Palm Computing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smartphones | EPOC32 Crystal | Mobile Explorer | PalmOS |
| Tablets | EPOC32 Quartz | Windows CE PocketPC (Mercury) | PalmOS |
| Clamshells | EPOC32 Pearl | Windows CE (Mars) | N/A |
| Subnotebooks | EPOC32 Pearl | Windows CE Pro (Jupiter) | N/A |
EPOC
As phones began to incorporate computer-type features and customers demanded wireless Internet access, the mobile industry feared that it would be dominated by Microsoft. To resist the software giant, the leading cellphone vendors formed a joint venture with Psion in 1998. Known as Symbian, the new company intended to build on Psion's EPOC operating system and license it for both phones and PDAs.
With Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Toshiba all owning a stake in Symbian, its operating system is destined to be widely adopted by mobile manufacturers. But the alliance is uneasy. The four companies are fierce competitors and may not be committed to working together. The operating system for tablets and phones is also taking longer to develop. By 2000, the company could only display dummies and said it was still a year from launching a system that could be used in commercial devices.
Two versions of EPOC for clamshells exist, known as EPOC16 and EPOC32. The former is designed for older, 16-bit processors and is only used in very low-cost organizers from Psion and a few other companies. The latter is a modular 32-bit system, containing a variety of optional applications. The plan is to adapt this for other types of devices, focusing on three "reference designs." Each is named after a crystal and includes different hardware and software components optimized for what Symbian sees as the three main market segments: clamshells, tablets, and phones.
Palm OS
Palm Computing was the success story of the late 1990s, its growth paralleling that of the Internet—though at first there was little connection between them. By 2000, only four years after its launch, the PalmPilot and its successors had captured 80 percent of the American PDA market. Only a tiny proportion were connected to the Web or any other data network, though Palm is now building wireless data capabilities into all its products.
Despite its success, Palm's dominance is not assured. The company suffers from the same problem as Apple: it manufactures both hardware and software, a situation Psion avoided by forming Symbian. The PalmOS has been licensed to several other companies, such as IBM, but most of these actually buy a complete system, including hardware, then add some extra software of their own. Customized versions exist for professional groups as diverse as doctors and realtors.
Some manufacturers have begun to buy the Palm operating system alone, putting it into their own hardware. Handspring, Qualcomm, and Sony have followed this route, and there is always the suspicion that Palm favors its own hardware division over its competitors. This is exactly the state of affairs that prompted the Department of Justice to attack Microsoft, so if Palm continues to dominate the market, an antitrust investigation cannot be ruled out.
Windows CE
By 1995, Microsoft had a near-monopoly on operating systems for PCs. The success of companies such as Psion led it to believe, correctly, that PDAs would eventually become a bigger market than computers. Its response was Windows CE, an operating system that looked just like the popular Windows 95 and even included cut-down versions of Microsoft's Office applications.
Despite the support of every major manufacturer except Psion, some of whom added features such as color screens and music playback, CE initially failed to win a strong following. Users criticized its lack of compatibility with non-Microsoft applications and said that the Windows user interface was too cluttered. It also suffered from bad timing—as Windows CE and Psion battled over the clamshell market, Palm's tablets were becoming enormously popular.
Microsoft tried again in 1998, with a version of Windows CE for palm-size devices that it optimistically dubbed the "PalmPilot killer." User reaction was again unfavorable. The Windows clutter made even less sense on an even more compact screen. The interface was improved over two versions, until by 2000 many analysts believed that Windows CE had finally got it right. But its competitors had a head start, and it still trailed both Palm and EPOC in the PDA market.
Microsoft offers three different versions of CE, each aimed at different types of PDA and named after planets. In addition, it has decided to separate the Internet browser from the operating system, so that mobile phone companies can license it without having to run Windows CE. Ericsson has chosen this option, licensing the Microsoft Mobile Explorer browser for phones that will use Symbian's operating system. Unlike CE itself, Mobile Explorer is widely praised because it can display both WAP and ordinary HTML.
Linux
Linux is an open-source operating system, which means it is produced by a vast collective of programmers who share information via the Internet. The original program listings are free for anyone to download and adapt as they see fit, in contrast to commercial software which is kept a closely guarded secret. The advantage of open-source is that it can be configured to suit just about anything; the disadvantage is that this configuration requires some programming skill.
Linux is popular among users who understand programming and don't mind tinkering a bit, such as the people who run computer networks. It is less popular among non-programmers, who want to be able to buy new peripherals or software and know that these will function without any hacking. This is why it runs most Web servers, but few ordinary PCs.
Though most mobile phone and PDA users aren't computer programmers, Linux is still a serious contender. The operating system is embedded into the device's hardware, so all the configuration can be done in advance. Because the source code is available, Linux is more flexible than other systems. Manufacturers can cut out as much of it as they want, keeping only the routines absolutely necessary for a particular device.
Proprietary or No Operating System
Most phones don't actually have an operating system. This may seem surprising to anyone used to the computer world, but a device used only to make calls doesn't really need one. Even the first generation of WAP phones used their own proprietary systems rather than any of the standards.
Phone-specific operating systems are expected to become less common as the de facto standards take off. The theory is that customers will become used to the interface and range of software available for Symbian, Windows CE, or PalmOS, while manufacturers find it cheaper to license a system than to develop one from scratch.