“Some of the world’s biggest handset makers and telecom carriers are embracing alternative mobile operating systems this year in a quest to become credible challengers to smartphones run by Apple Inc. and Google Inc.,” Yun-Hee Kim and Thomas Gryta report for The Wall Street Journal.
“These companies are hoping they can outgun attempts by Microsoft Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. to emerge as a third alternative platform to the iPhone and Android devices, which have a virtual stranglehold on the market,” Kim and Gryta report. “Manufacturers such as Huawei Technologies Co., LG Electronics Inc. and ZTE Corp. are building phones for Mozilla’s Firefox OS due out this year with the support of several major carriers. The first mobile phone using Tizen, a system co-developed by Samsung Electronics Co. and Intel Corp., is slated to be unveiled in the third quarter.”
Kim and Gryta report, “Handset makers and telecom operators say diversification is needed to bring down the cost of handsets and subsidies. Some of them also fear that market leader Google is becoming too dominant. But any new mobile operating system faces an uphill battle against deep-pocketed early movers Google and Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s the ecosystem, dummies. And no one, including (let’s be more accurate: “early copier”) Google, has anything even remotely close to Apple’s array of services and content.