What If Nokia's Windows Phone Gambit Falls Flat?

Nokia has bet the farm in Espoo, so to speak, on Windows Phones. It has seen steadily declining smartphone share in North America and outside the US over the past several quarters. Nokia's biggest markets are now the BRIC developing nations. The company is hoping to reverse the trend with a combination of Microsoft's OS and bold design. (The compelling looking N9 isn't coming to the US or Europe apparently.)

However it may be tough to reverse the slide. Yesterday comScore reported US smartphone market share numbers. Symbian, which is being phased out, continues to see share losses. Yet so does Microsoft despite its new OS, which many have praised. 

It's not as clear what's happening in Europe, where there are indications of greater consumer uptake of Windows Phones. But so far people aren't buying them in North America and the US in particular.

Mango, the forthcoming Windows Phone software update, offers a range of new features and improvements, though arguably not enough to dramatically advance Windows Phones vs. Android and iOS. So it's quite possible that the first "Nokisoft" phones that show up later this year in Q4 will not fly off the shelves. Pricing will be a key factor, however, and looms large in the initial sales strategy.

I'm betting that the first Nokisoft phones will see modest success -- I would be very surprised if they were a blockbuster hit out of the gate -- but it's also possible that they'll fall completely flat with consumers and disappoint expectations, which are very high. (Nokia will have to carefully manage investor and market expectations.) If they under-perform expectations you'll see investors go crazy and punish both Microsoft and Nokia, but especially Nokia.

Investors will give Nokia roughly two quarters to show traction with the new handsets. If Nokia's gambit doesn't pay off the company may go on the block. All this remains to be seen of course; but the stakes couldn't be higher. 

What Nokia probably should have done, but was probably precluded from doing by its contract with Microsoft, is to embrace both Android and Windows Phones as well as continue developing MeeGo with Intel. The company walked away from MeeGo, much to the surprise of Intel, though the N9 is the first and (apparently) only MeeGo phone. And it declined to work with Google for fear of becoming a "commodity producer" of Android devices. 

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is of course a former Microsoft employee; some people accused him of being a "Trojan Horse" for Microsoft. But he said several times that he saw a better opportunity for differentiation by working with Microsoft. But by doing so he's limited Nokia's options and outlook if Windows Phones don't entice consumers. 

To use a US baseball metaphor: it's two outs, bottom of the 9th. Nokisoft needs to hit a double, if not a home run. 

inMobi: In-App Ads Outpace Mobile Web Ads Growth

Mobile ad network inMobi released new findings based on data gathered from its global mobile ad network. Among other things, the company reports the comparative market shares of mobile operating systems and handsets on its network.

In addition inMobi said that in-app ads grew faster in April than mobile web advertising: "Commenting on the study, James Lamberti, VP Global Research & Marketing at InMobi, says: "Following the global smartphone revolution, 'in-application' advertising continues to outpace mobile web ad growth."

Below are inMobi's market share charts, with the US market represented in the second chart. 

Nearly 10% growth in iPhone share in the US was driven by the introduction of the Verizon iPhone. Other data from IDC, comScore, Nielsen and others have confirmed a similar lift for the Apple handset. Here are comScore's March smartphone data for comparison purposes:

What's the principal difference between the comScore data and inMobi's numbers? ComScore's data are derived from consumer surveys, while inMobi's is based on ads and impressions served on actual handsets.

'Galaxy Player' Samsung's Most Appealing 'Tablet'

The most appealing device in the Samsung "tablet" lineup may be its 5" "Galaxy Player" introduced at CES this year. I had read about it but hadn't seen one until yesterday. In fact I saw the full array of Samsung tablets at AppNation. (The Galaxy Player is on the left in the picture below.)

The larger tablets are much less appealing than the iPad, both in terms of hardware and software. The 7" Galaxy Tab is somewhat appealing because of its more portable "on the go" form factor. But I was surprised how drawn I was to the 5" device. 

Supposedly an iPod touch competitor the WiFi Galaxy Player looks like a giant Galaxy S Android phone but the additional screen real estate offers a better user experience than comparable Samsung smartphones. It can also still fit "in your pocket" in a way that even the 7" device cannot. 

My belief is that if it were to be made into a phone it would be the perfect all-in-one device, with a larger screen for apps and internet use but small enough to still functional effectively as a phone. (With a data plan one could use Skype as the phone.) 

I was unable to get any pricing information out of the Samsung representatives I spoke to. However pricing is going to be a mess for the company with so many tablet devices. Ultimately perhaps only two or three sizes will survive and the others will fall away for lack of demand/sales. 

If the 5" device were priced below $200 and marketed properly it could become very successful and could become a true challenger to the iPod Touch. 

InMobi: Android Passes iPhone, Nokia Falling

Ad network InMobi released its latest Mobile Insights Report: Global Edition March 2011. Based on 31.9 billion monthly impressions generated by 220 million consumers, the latest report shows phones running the Android OS overtaking Apple's iPhone. This is consistent with most other data in the market.

The report continues to show Nokia as the global smartphone leader but, like other sources, indicates a decline in its overall share. Strikingly, InMobi says "Nokia lost -3.9 share points in just 90 days, while Samsung (+1.6 share pts), Apple (+1.9 share pts) and HTC (+2.8 share pts) gained share." 

Another striking data point: "35% of all mobile ad impressions now occur on smartphones."

In North America, as with the Millennial data just released this morning, the Verizon iPhone has helped Apple but that has not been enought to slow Android's momentum. But for quarter, according to InMobi, Apple's growth outpaced Android's in North America. RIM also grew. 

Globally Android, iOS and RIM grew while others declined according to the report. Below, compare the most recent IDC numbers (global estimates for year-end 2011) and those from comScore (US) representing the most recent quarter. 

The IDC numbers for Android above are quite aggressive vs. what InMobi show. IDC's numbers are projections based on existing sales and additional assumptions about future consumer purchase behavior. ComScore's data are based on consumer surveys. 

InMobi: Android Gains Global, iPhone Top Device

Mobile ad network InMobi today released its "Mobile Insights Report: Global Edition January 2011." The report effectively covers all major regions of the globe and there's a trove of data from each continent. I'll focus only on North America and global data.

The company reports that smartphones now represent 36% of global ad requests on the InMobil publisher network, up from 24% -- just three months ago. Most of that growth has been driven by Android. But most ad requests (84%) are coming from mobile Web vs. apps (16%). 

Unlike in the US where Android is now the top smartphone platform, Nokia and Apple outstrip Android on a global basis. However Android's growth is much greater than that of the iPhone and Nokia is declining by almost as much as Android is growing.

In North America operating system share appears like this to InMobi:

• Android: 37%
• iPhone: 24%
• RIM: 11%

InMobi explains that Android has gained 21 share points in just three months to become the largest OS in North America. 

These numbers are not an absolute reflection of market share but what InMobi sees in terms of handsets and operating systems making ad requests. In terms of individual handsets, the iPhone continues to dominate on InMobi's network globally and in North America.  

Global device share: 

North American device share: 

It's clear from the totality of all the available data that Android's gains are coming through the sheer number of devices in the market. Windows isn't on the radar for InMobi in North America. And RIM appears to be getting overwhelmed by the Android onslaught. 

Mobile Display Growing Dramatically for Google

Friday Google released AdMob data showing 2010 growth and ad distribution by region for the Google mobile display network. The largest region is North America (dominated by the US), followed by Asia and Western Europe.

According to IDC's most recent estimates mobile display is not as big a revenue source as mobile paid search for Google. Here are the estimated US mobile display ad market share figures (minus search dollars): 

• Google: 19%
• Apple: 18.8%
• Millennial: 15.4%
• Yahoo: 10.1%
• Jumptap: 8.4%
• Microsoft: 7.8% 
• Others (including AOL, Nokia): 20.5%

The following are the AdMob charts showing 2010 growth by region:

Facebook Pushes Growth on Feature Phones with New App

Facebook is the top free iPhone app of "all time" (so far). The site is also the top site or the number two site in most countries around the world according to Opera's regular reporting. The company has more than 200 million mobile users who are the most active of Facebook's more than 600 million global members. According to the most recently published public numbers from the social network:

• There are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users
• There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products 

Facebook also operates the "0.facebook.com" site to reach users on non-smartphones. But yesterday Facebook announced a new feature-phone app from Snaptu. The idea is to drive global penetration and usage even further, recognizing the strategic importance of mobile to the future of the business.

Smartphones will be in the majority in the "West" across the board at some point in the next five years. But around the world, inexpensive feature phones or not-quite-smartphones will remain dominant for the foreseeable future. This new app will help provide a better user experience than the 0.facebook mobile Web/Wap experience. 

Simultaneously Facebook is reportedly working with mobile-handset manufacturer INQ Mobile Ltd on a couple of Android-based quasi-branded smartphones. Facebook also recently launched Connect and single sign-on for mobile phones. In short the company is trying to penetrate and conquer the entire mobile ecosystem from top to bottom, from apps to hardware. 

What it doesn't (yet) have is mobile advertising. This will come without question. And when it does, Facebook will be largest mobile ads network/platform on the globe. 

Related posts: 

• If Facebook Were an Ad Network, It Would Be the Biggest
• Visa Using Facebook Page As Mobile Landing Page
• Facebook Wants to Be the 'Social Inside' of All Mobile Experiences
• Facebook Launches Connect for the iPhone
• Android-Based 'Facebook Phone' Is By INQ Mobile

AdMob Now Seeing 2B Daily Ad Requests

Now that AdMob is part of Google we're not getting the great monthly data and reports that we used to see from the company. But Google has just put out some new data on impression growth. The headline (literally) is that AdMob is seeing 2+ billion ad requests per day (on a global basis).

Here's more: 

• Ad requests have grown 4X in the past 12 months
• More than 100 million unique Android and iOS devices requested an ad each month, nearly doubling over the last six months.
• Nine countries in the AdMob network generated more than a billion monthly ad requests in December 2010, up from just one country a year ago.
• The strongest regional growth in monthly ad requests over the past year has come from Asia (564%), Western Europe (471%) and Oceania (363%)

Google previously said that it had a $1 billion mobile advertising run rate. I did a quick analysis of how that billion might break down, assuming that mobile ad revenues were distributed along the same lines as paid-search revenue generally speaking.

IDC's revised US mobile ad numbers show Google as totally dominant over the rest of the field in terms of market share.

• Google: 59%
• Apple: 8.4%
• Millennial: 6.8%
• Yahoo: 5.6% 
• Microsoft: 4.3%
• Other: 15.9%

These figures below include search, which is 56% of mobile ad revenue in the US according to the firm. Almost none of the competing mobile ad networks and platforms have search ad revenue, which is why it's so lopsided in Google's favor. Just looking at display the IDC numbers look somewhat more balanced:

• Google: 19%
• Apple: 18.8%
• Millennial: 15.4%
• Yahoo: 10.1%
• Jumptap: 8.4%
• Microsoft: 7.8% 
• Others (including AOL, Nokia): 20.5%

Sumsung Gunning for Top Android Spot, Android in Spotlight at CES

Samsung has reportedly sold more than 10 million "Galaxy S" Android handsets globally (in seven months), according to several reports. The company is selling roughly 1.4 million units per month. The largest market is North America, followed by Europe and South Korea.

Late to the smartphone party, Samsung is on pace to become the dominant Android OEM globally. Motorola would seem to be the most vulnerable of the OEMs to the Korean electronics giant's Android gains.

Below are the most recent global and US OEM sales and market share figures according to Gartner and comScore:

Of course the Consumer Electronics Show is this week and we're going to see lots of Android devices. Verizon is set to announce the first 4G Android handsets for its LTE network. There will also apparently be a million and one Android tablets on display, from Lenovo, Toshiba, Motorola, Vizio and others.

As with Android handsets it will be a battle to differentiate on hardware features and price. Most of the new Android tablets will run Honeycomb, making the Samsung Galaxy Tab obsolete unless it gets the software upgrade. (Samsung says it has sold 1.5 million Galaxy Tabs, largely because of the smaller form factor; the UX is mediocre compared to the iPad.) One thing to keep an eye out for is sub-$200 tablets of reasonable quality. 

The Verizon iPhone apparently won't be announced at CES and will instead be presented at a special Apple press event in February. At that time the company may also introduce its anticipated iPad 2 to respond to the Android tablet tsunami. 

We're not attending CES and because it's such a "noisy" show, we'll only be selectively reporting on announcements coming out of it. 

Galaxy Tab's Million Unit Sales Suggest Popularity of Smaller Form Factor

The iPad is a great device but for true "mobility" it's arguably too large. The smartphone, for others, is too small for many tasks such as watching video, reading news or ebooks -- especially after doing these things on an iPad. What's the solution? The "Goldilocks" form factor, which provides usability and mobility, may well be the 7-inch tablet.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs attacked the 7" as too small and too big simultaneously. Conceptually he may be right but the apparent popularity of the Galaxy Tab suggests there are a lot of people looking for a larger screen (vs. a smartphone) in a more mobile unit. Tech publication eWeek reported that maker Samsung said that a million units have been sold since the recent launch of the Tab. 

My brief experience with the Galaxy Tab in a store in London revealed to me that it offers much weaker user experience than the iPad. Not all agree however. But my belief is that the smaller form factor is driving sales, rather than the particulars of this device. The user experience, like Android more generally, is "good enough" but the smaller form factor is attractive to many people.

The RIM/BlackBerry Playbook is also 7 inches. The Playbook isn't out yet but it promises to be a credible competitor in the tablet market. There are many other 7-inch tablets coming as well. Acer, in particular, is launching 5 inch, 7 inch and 10 inch models.

The 5-inch Dell Streak, a non-phone connected device, is unlikely to succeed because it's expensive and not sufficiently differentiated from a smartphone. Indeed, five inches is probably too small for a tablet, unless it's also a phone, and anything larger than the iPad is too large. The dual-screen version of tablet-textbook Kno, for example, is likely to fail because it's too large and cumbersome.

My guess, however, is that the 7-inch form factor will take hold. So we'll have a range of smartphone sizes, topping out at about 5 inches, and two viable tablets sizes: 7 inches and roughly 10 inches. Apple will then be forced to confront whether it wants to build an "iPad Nano" or cede the market to others. 

Survey: Smartphone Market Still Up for Grabs

With many smug spinmeisters and pundits proclaiming that the "smartphone wars" are over (with Apple and Google as winners), a new survey from GfK (n=2,653 mobile users in UK, US, Brazil, Germany, Spain and China) suggests a much more fluid marketplace. 

The survey found that as many as 75% of current smartphone users are open to changing or will change mobile OSs when they get new phones. Overall only 25% were loyal to their existing OS. Analysis of the findings argues that consumers are "keeping options open" as new smartphones come out on a seemingly weekly basis. This is particularly acute on the Android platform.

The frenzy of releases and the fast-changing nature of the device market has likely created the "disloyalty" reflected in the survey data. However I would caution that the sample sizes break down and become very small on an individual country basis.  

Among individual operating systems, the survey found that loyalty was highest to the iPhone (59%) and lowest for Microsoft (21%). Android and Nokia didn't fare much better (at 28% and 24% respectively). RIM saw 35% of BlackBerry users saying they would likely stay on the platform.

Earlier this year Nielsen found that the iPhone had slightly higher levels of loyalty than Android. But these findings showed much higher loyalty levels for both platforms and especially Android. Indeed, these US-only findings are dramatically different than those from the GfK survey. 

If Facebook Were an Ad Network, It Would Be the Biggest

Yesterday in the context of its mobile event Facebook announced (consistent with my prediction) that the company had more than 200 million active mobile users around the world. I earlier asked Facebook to break this out by US vs. international numbers, which they declined to do. But let's try and figure that out . . . shall we.

Facebook itself says that 70% of its usage comes from outside the US: "About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States." That means (assuming 500 million total users) that 150 million users are in the US. 

If we were to assume that mobile usage breaks down along the same US-international lines that would mean 140 million mobile users would be international, while 60 million would be in the US. My guess is that mobile usage doesn't break down along those lines exactly. Much of Facebook's mobile usage is likely to come from smartphones and its mobile apps in particular, although Facebook does operate sites for non-smartphone browsers and has a text only site at 0.facebook.com.

The US doesn't have the highest smartphone penetration among Western countries, Spain probably does. But in absolute numbers the US has more smartphones than any other country. Let's say (based on a collection of third party data points) that are something like 60 million smartphone users in the US. How many of those people are using Facebook (probably not 100%). Yet Facebook's mobile usage doesn't come exclusively from smartphones. We don't know, however, how many non-smartphone Facebook users there are in the US or elsewhere in the world. 

Nielsen says there are 85 million mobile Internet users total. So one would need to assume that there aren't more US mobile Facebook users than 85 million. My guess then is that there are about 75 million mobile facebook users in the US. If we were to treat Facebook as a mobile ad network, where would 75 million users put them in the hierarchy?

According to the Nielsen data in the chart below, Facebook would be the largest mobile ad network. 

Credit: Nielsen/TechCrunch/4Info 

Notwithstanding Facebook Deals, announced yesterday, it doesn't quality as a mobile ad network -- quite yet.

Opera State of Mobile Web for September

Opera has released its latest "State of the Mobile Web" report. Through data compression the company says its Opera Mini browser "saves consumers worldwide more than 2.2 billion USD each month on their mobile data bills . . . Consumers in the United States and Nigeria benefit the most from Opera Mini’s unique compression technology, which reduces the size of web pages up to 90 percent (%). Using prevailing metered rates, United States consumers could save 141 USD on average each month . . ."

Here are charts for China, the US and UK based on Opera Mini users' online behavior patterns. The top sites and leading handsets have remained relatively stable for months. 

Ending the Myth of Asian Mobile Usage Patterns Coming to US

For several years I went to mobile marketing or technology conferences to hear speakers say something like the following: "X is happening in Asia or Europe, so it's only a matter of time before it happens in the US." Perhaps we can stop saying that now.

Asia, Europe and the US are distinct markets, influenced by their own cultures, PC and Internet infrastructures, carrier policies and technology adoption trends. Asia and Japan in particular were early adopters of mobile platforms and the mobile Internet, partly because of a less-developed and more challenging PC Internet infrastructure. Europe developed a culture of text messaging partly because it was more expensive to make calls.

However with the exception of Symbian/MeeGo, all the most advanced mobile operating systems are coming out of North America and mostly the US. This hardly makes the North America the mobile laggard that many have traditionally said it was/is.

Equally I do not see every geography racing toward some inevitable common mobile adoption paradigm: "As markets mature they will also look like X,Y, Z." I read new comScore mobile data comparing Japan, Europe and North America as confirming the distinctiveness of the regions rather than reflecting who's "ahead" or "behind" in specific mobile categories -- all racing toward a common outcome. However comScore does present its data through the lens of this ahead/behind scenario.

 The circled items in the chart are my addition to the original comScore data. While some patterns in Japan or Europe are bound to come to the US market (and vice versa) that's not guaranteed. 

For example, more than 50% in the US and Europe will likely become "connected" in the near term. However, text messaging in Japan may never reach European or US levels. And while TV watching in Japan is quite heavy by comparison, US and EU levels may never get to the same place.

Some patterns and adoption rates may turn out to be comparable over time across markets.

My point is that each market is distinct and may maintain distinctive features. The Morgan Stanley position -- because it happened in Japan it will happen here --  I believe is incorrect accordingly. Some things that happened in Japan will happen in the West, but not everything. 

At CTIA last week Millennial Media remarked that after 10 years of the mobile Internet in Japan 90% of ad revenues were in display and not search. That's a valuable and interesting data point. But it doesn't necessarily predict how the US mobile ad market will evolve. (Though I do agree display will play a significant role in mobile.) 

The larger point is that we need a more nuanced view of international markets and cannot simply make the assumption that Japan and Europe are "more advanced" across the board or assume that trends will play out in similar ways in "less mature" markets. 

Android-Based 'Facebook Phone' Is By INQ Mobile

First TechCrunch reported Facebook was working on a phone or mobile OS. Then CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on the record to dispel the rumor so as not to hurt the company's relationships with partners and would-be partners. He explained that Facebook was looking to work with everybody in mobile and be as deeply integrated as possible into mobile OSs generally and serve as the social platform or enabler for mobile.

But Bloomberg is out with more details of an actual quasi-branded handset, which turns out to be a new and improved (perhaps) version of INQ's "social mobile" handset introduced last year:

Facebook Inc. is working with mobile-handset manufacturer INQ Mobile Ltd. on two smartphones that may be carried by AT&T Inc., according to three people familiar with the matter.

The devices, which will feature Facebook social-networking services, are due to be introduced in Europe in the first half of 2011 and the U.S. in the second half, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been made public. AT&T, the second-largest U.S. wireless service provider, is still considering whether to carry the devices and hasn’t made a deal, another of the people said . . .

The new phones are slated to run Google Inc.’s Android operating system and will probably carry the AT&T brand in the U.S., according to one of the people. Facebook hasn’t decided whether its name will be used on the devices, the person said. 

Here's what Zuckerberg says in his TechCrunch follow-up interview about INQ:

[D]ifferent people come to us with different ideas all the time, and we mentioned the example of the INQ phone in the past, and I think you appropriately said that it isn’t some massive big thing, but it is cool and actually a lot of people bought it . . .

The INQ phone, I don’t think we had any engineers work on it. And certainly HTC modifies all their own Android stuff — Sense. I think a lot of companies are trying to figure out how to differentiate on that. A bunch of them are interested in talking to us, I think it makes sense. Social is becoming more important to make all these applications better. If we can help them do that, that can potentially be very valuable, but that’s more them. I don’t know — it’s a very decentralized ecosystem and there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on.

It will be interesting to see how deeply integrated Facebook is on this device -- is it a "social layer" available to all the apps if you're signed in to Facebook -- and how prominently Facebook's brand shows up on the device. 

Report: Deeper Mobile Internet Penetration in China

Nielsen offers some very interesting data on China's mobile market, based on almost 5,000 face-to-face consumer interviews, and compares it to mobile behavior in the US. The finding: a higher percentage of Chinese subscribers use the mobile Internet than their US counterparts. 

Just over 37% of China's 755 million mobile phone subscribers in China access the Internet on their handsets. That represents roughly 279 million people overall. In the US there are 77 million mobile Internet users, representing about 27% of subscribers, according to the most recent Nielsen estimates.

The size of the Chinese market is currently about three times larger than the US market. However there's much more growth potential in China vs. the US, which is already a mature market in terms of subscriber penetration. By contrast just over half of China's population has a mobile phone. And China is one of those developing markets where primary Internet access is very quickly likely to be via mobile vs. a PC. 

The mobile market in China is almost equally split between men and women and different age groups. Almost 90% (87%) are pre-paid subscribers. Below is the breakdown of mobile activities by category and then a comparison with US mobile user behavior. 

Opera: State of Mobile Web, June 2010

The latest Opera report is out. The focus of the report this month is on Africa and the World Cup. Opera said it had 59.4 million users of the Opera Mini globally. I'm now using it on my Android Evo at least as much as the native browser (which often tries to send me to the carrier portal annoyingly).

Below are the top sites and handsets for China, the UK and US. The iPhone is now the top handset in both the UK and US, while Nokia continues to dominate in the aggregate.

Compare the data from roughly a year ago, July, 2009. While there is some shuffling among the top sites (e.g, MySpace has gone from #3 to #10 in the US) the data reflect mostly the same top 10 in these countries over the past year. 

iOS v. Android, but What about the Others?

The media keep focusing on the "battle" between iPhone and Android. But the mobile platform and handset market is not winner-take-all. There's room for more than two players to succeed in the US and internationally. This is a key point made by Google itself several times now. 

But how many platforms and smartphone operating systems can the market support exactly?

The following charts reflect OS representation on AdMob's global network. (AdMob does not equal the mobile Internet or mobile handsets more broadly, but there's a directional correspondence between mobile Internet trends and what AdMob shows in its metrics reports.)

If you consider the chart immediately above, what you see is that the "mobile Internet" (on AdMob's network) is dominated by iOS, followed by Android in North America and Western Europe. In other regions Nokia is a major player or dominant. Despite its large, installed base RIM is barely present on this chart.

RIM of course sells more smartphones than anyone in North America. However its mobile Internet usage data and overall user experience lag competitors. BlackBerry 6 seeks to change that.  

There aren't going to be five viable global smartphone platforms. There might be four, but it's more likely three. Those will vary, as the chart above suggests, on a geographic basis, with the two "constants" across regions likely to be Android and the iPhone.

Given the scathing criticque that an InfoWorld writer offered of Windows 7 (after a demo), it's quite possible that Microsoft might not be among the winners:

The bottom line is this: Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone. It's as if Microsoft decided in summer 2007 to copy the iPhone and has shut its developers in a bunker ever since, so they don't realize that several years have passed, that the iPhone has advanced, and that competitors such as Google Android and Palm WebOS have also pushed the needle forward. 

We'll have to wait and see how accurate this very harsh review is later this year when the handsets hit the market. But the Kin debacle is not a good sign for Redmond. 

In the US smartphone market, it's currently a three-way race between iPhone, Android and RIM. In Europe it's likely to be iPhone, Android and Nokia. Other platforms may simply not have the scale and (developer) mindshare to compete. Several developer surveys certainly suggest this as well. 

 Source: Appcelerator (6/10)