Chinese mobile-phone vendors vacillate on operating-system strategies

来源:百度文库 编辑:神马文学网 时间:2024/03/29 21:08:53
Symbian‘s expensive license makes Chinese mobile-phone vendors flinch. The wireless connection between Windows Mobile and PC applications seems promising. The Linux kernel is free, but mobile-phone vendors are still unwilling to use it as the foundation of their operating systems.
Like their counterparts elsewhere, mobile-phone vendors in the Chinese market face a quandary when selecting an operating-system platform. They hope to effectively develop next-generation smart mobile phones with proprietary intellectual property, but they have not yet made a clear selection among Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Linux.
Among the several prevalent operating systems, Symbian has long had a strong advocate: mobile-phone giant Nokia. In addition, Microsoft recently reached an agreement with Symbian to open synchronous software functions, dramatically improving the interoperability between Symbian and PC systems. Nonetheless, Symbian now faces a problem in China: It seems that no homegrown mobile-phone vendors are willing to use its products. The mobile phone is a cost-sensitive product in the Chinese market, and, according to these vendors, the use of Symbian‘s products adds significant royalties, increasing their design cost and putting them at a disadvantage in the market.
Microsoft‘s Windows Mobile system targets higher end smart-phone products. In addition to its good technical capabilities, its unique advantages lie in the recognition that PC users give to Windows. This year, Microsoft has been promoting a vision of "seamless" connections and shared resources. As PC-based Windows has gained a large share of the Chinese market, the interconnection and interoperability between mobile devices and PCs will help improve opportunities for Windows Mobile.
European vendors perceived the Linux kernel as a good match for mobile-phone designs for the Chinese market. But it turns out that China‘s design community has problems with Linux. Although Linux is an open kernel, development of mobile-phone systems based on such a kernel is not cheap. Only the kernel is free; costs for R&D, testing, optimization, and integration actually run quite high, and the development cycle is very long.
Moreover, the limited number of Linux-based applications also constrains the operating system‘s penetration in the mobile market. Finally, different versions of Linux come with diversified libraries and SDKs (software-development kits). These variants don‘t provide the consistent platform that phone-design teams need.