The hidden value of the mobile operating system

Symbian’s David Wood insight no.7 covers growing mobile OS debate with a hard look under the bonnets of Linux, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Symbian OS and asks which is truly delivering a product purely for the mobile environment and who will ultimately bring smartphones to the mass market?

Author suggests six of the problems faced by Linux phone distributions:

1. Even though the quality of software from kernel.org itself is undoubtedly high, the quality of the 90+% of additional software is much more variable.
2. Even though there are agreed APIs at the level of Linux itself, there is a long way from being any consensus about the APIs provided at the higher levels on top of Linux – different phones that contain Linux have made very different choices about the higher level software.
3. In most cases, the higher level APIs are not published to third parties, restricting the kinds of native add-on software that these companies can provide for phones – this means that a reduced level of innovation takes place on these phones.
4. Network operators keep on updating the various specification documents that describe their requirements for the next season of mobile phones – there is a host of new requirements that must be met, covering device management, personalisation, graphics animations, browser performance, dynamic content handling, application signing, and operator customisation.
5. Linux phone distributions struggle with the complex issues of software compatibility across different versions.
6. The special needs of phones have led Linux distributors to make changes in the kernel itself, in areas such as power management and real-time behaviour – such changes sometimes fail to be accepted back into master version of the Linux kernel.

Furthermore, David argues how Symbian is much further down the road with solutions to these problems:

1. Symbian, along with its close partners, provide a much larger proportion of the software needed in an advanced mobile phone.
2. The level of fragmentation within the Symbian world is much easier to handle than that in the Linux phone world.
3. There is no issue of separate diverging branches of Symbian OS for the desktop and mobile phone worlds, since Symbian exclusively prioritises mobile phones.
4. Symbian is in the business that gains revenues from mass volume sales of mobile phones, meaning that they are incentivised, to take steps to continually increase the fitness of purpose of Symbian OS for mobile phones.

In conclusion, author argues that the argument that phone operating systems are a commodity reminds of an argument that was widespread, some years back, when Google (NSDQ: GOOG) was just starting out in the search business. The argument was that search was already a well-solved problem, with multiple good solutions available from other companies. Therefore, analysts couldn’t see the need for yet another company in this space.Finally, David claims that, in the same way, mobile phone operating systems are a deep problem, and require the intensely specialist focus that Symbian brings. Their “mobile phone DNA” – roots in mobile phones as opposed to computers – allows Symbian to deliver a product which is notably fitter for purpose for use in this very specific environment.

You can read all the insight series from Symbian’s website.