Mobile phone sector is one of the fastest growing technology-based industries in the world. This industry has various dimensions. Today’s mobile technology is much ahead than voice calls impression, the additional benefits are pouring into the mobile market every day. Nowadays there is a mobile for every sort of person and for almost every form of usage. All this have been made possible because of the efficient Operating systems that have made everything available in the reach of gadget users.
Smartphones are tanked up with mobile operating system that makes this phone a device beyond expectation. Some of the big names in the list of Smartphones include Nokia's Symbian, Google's Android, Apple's iOS, RIM’s BlackBerry OS, Microsoft's Windows Phone, Linux, Palm/HP's WebOS, Samsung’s Bada, Nokia's Maemo and MeeGo among many others. Android, Bada, WebOS and Maemo are built on top of Linux, and iOS is derived from the BSD and NeXTSTEP operating systems, which are all related to UNIX.
The Android operating system for smartphones was introduced in 2008. Android is an open source platform supported by Google along with major hardware and software developers including Intel, HTC, ARM Motorola, Samsung etc.
2010 saw the rapid rise of the Google Android operating system from 4 percent of new deployments in 2009 to 33 percent at the beginning of 2011 making it share the top position with the since long dominating Symbian OS. The smaller rivals include popular Canadian Blackberry OS, the trendsetter iOS, Samsung's recently introduced bada, HP's heir of Palm Pilot webOS and the Microsoft Windows Phone.
Users’ preference puts the phones as Android 33%, Symbian 31%, Apple 16%, RIM 14%, Windows 3% and others 3%.
Looking at the sales figure of various mobile operating systems the difference in terms of popularity of OS and adaption by users gets clear.
Symbian captured users’ mind 46.9% in year 2009, where the sales of symbian based smartphones came down to 37.6% in year 2010. Android managed to attain 3.9% sales and it miraculously increased to 22.7% in year 2010. Whereas RIM slightly falls from 19.9% to 16.0% in 2010, iPhone successfully maintains the figure and grows a little from 14.4% (2009) to 15.7% in 2010. Microsoft in 2009 shared 8.7% of the sales in the market and its popularity came down bringin the sales figure to 4.2%. Other operating systems have reduced the sales portion from 6.1% (2009) to 3.8% (2010).
The figures clearly show that Android’s growth rate is exponential. The software platform for mobile devices based on the Linux operating system developed by Google and Open Handset Alliance is gaining momentum in terms of growth and popularity. Google has provided the openness of Windows Mobile with the attractiveness of the iPhone user interface.
Android application store‘s growth rate has been escalating from the time it entered into the market.
There are reports that the numbers of apps in Android Market have just overtaken Apple's. Android is also becoming the dominant OS, with almost every phone manufacturer, may be except BlackBerry and Nokia, coming out with Android phones.
Being an open source platform Android is doing a bully job in the market. The list of mobile phone based on Android OS is pretty long. Since the time Android OS stepped, every mobile manufacturer is trying it out in their new mobile phones and experiencing a huge welcoming response from the users’ side. Sony recently introduced its Android mobile phones including xperia mini, xperia mini pro, W8, xperia play, xperia pro, xperia neo, xperia Arc, xperia play, CDMA, A8i, xperia x8. Whereas LG came up with its new range of Android mobile phones optimus big LV6800, phoenix, Thrive, thrill4G, optimus 3D p920, optimus pad, optimus chat c550, optimus Me p350, optimus Black p970 this year. In the same manner other phone manufacturers like Samsung, Motorola, Micromax etc. are pouring their fresh Android models in the marketplace.The Windows Phone is also expected to get a boost with Nokia joining hands with Microsoft.
There are app stores for almost all mobile operating systems, the era started with the one for iPhone by Apple then the flowage of app stored hit the market bringing in Ovi by Nokia, Android Market by Google and BlackBerry App World and Windows Marketplace.
The smartphone’s generation has a long bright way ahead, as it offers a huge platform to value added services and allows the users to flourish their lifestyle with experience and knowledge. The steep growth of Android generates a fair competition scenario in the marketplace and other OS developers are expected to come up with some delighting flying colors of technology.