The Mobile Device Landscape

Figure A shows mobile-device shipments in 2005 and 2010, as forecasted by IDC. Although Windows Mobile is expected to grow from shipping 6.1 million devices in 2005 to 22.1 million in 2010, Symbian sustains reduced but still substantial market leadership and is expected to ship 54.8 million devices in 2010. Research in Motion’s (RIM’s) BlackBerry will remain popular, especially in corporate email deployments, but will come under pressure from new devices and management applications, especially in Windows environments. It’s worth noting that BlackBerry is a closed ecosystem that is supported by the cell operators who make money through the Network Operations Center (NOC). Because the cell operators are involved, the costs of connecting RIM devices is often cheaper than connecting equivalent Windows Mobile devices, although this differential may disappear as it becomes more attractive for cell operators to sell unlimited data plans for an increasing number of Windows mobile devices